Alium sub meo nomine: Augustine between His Own Self-Fashioning and His Later Reception1

Karla Pollmann

St Andrews University, School of Classics, GB – St Andrews KY16 9AL, Email: kfp@st-andrews.ac.uk

I. Introduction

Apart from Cicero, Augustine is the fi gure from (Late) Antiquity we know most about based on his prolifi c writings. More recent scholarship has noticed that this enormous output has infl uenced the way we see Augustine not only as a philosophical and theological thinker but also as a person2. The so-called ‘linguistic turn’ has made historians aware that such state-ments do not necessarily enable us to reconstruct the one ‘real’ Augustine but that they are rather to been seen as rhetorical strategies determined by a specifi c historical context and driven by an argumentative aim to persuade. Therefore, unsurprisingly, Augustine stylizes himself differently in different works and contexts: in the Confessiones as the torn individual searching for truth, identity and salvation, on a path littered with mistakes and vices; in anti-heretical works as confi dent, polemic and ‘dogmatic’; in writings directed at his fellow-Christians his attitude varies from doubt via pluralistic openness to fatherly advice offered with the help of God’s grace. In the following we will look at some of these instances in more detail before we will probe selectively how successful this strategy was in later times. Generally, self-fashioning has the function of establishing or regaining authenticity, of authorizing the true reading of one’s works,

1 This contribution was written in spring 2007 during my stay as Visiting Professor at the University of Århus, Faculty of Theology. I wish to thank my colleagues and the students there for their warm welcome and the stimulating discussions about many aspects of our common research interests. Various versions of this paper have been delivered at the Oxford Patristics Conference (2007), at the Universities of Gozo (Malta), Stellenbosch, Leiden, Amsterdam and Utrecht. I am grateful for all comments received on those occa-sions. Moreover, this paper is part of my project on the reception of Augustine, which is generously sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust (see www.st-and.ac.uk/classics/after-augustine). For the Latin phrase in the title see below note 77.

2 Most notably J.J. O’Donnell, Augustine, Sinner and Saint: A New Biography, London 2005; see N. Baker-Brian, Modern Augustinian Biographies: Revisions and Counter-memories, ZAC 11, 2007, (151-167) 159-163, and M. Elliott, More Confessed Than Unconfessed: Thoughts Gained from Teaching the Canonical Augustine, ZAC 11, 2007, (115-128) 115f., both with further references.

ZAC, vol. 14, pp. 409-424 DOI 10.1515/ZAC.2010.20© Walter de Gruyter 2010

410 Karla Pollmann

of divesting oneself from all superimposed ‘wrong’ readings, while at the same time displaying a seemingly self-effacing and sometimes gently pompous self-scrutiny which not only puts oneself inevitably at the very centre of the readers’ attention but leads also to self-transformation and self-mythologization. Of course, Augustine was not the only one to adopt such a strategy. Noteworthy examples from Antiquity would be Cicero3 and Seneca the Younger4. In Augustine’s case, however, the whole of his life and work becomes consolidated in such a retrospective reading. Self-fashioning is thus in our context to be understood as the attempt to project a certain persona across to the reader by using various rhetorical techniques like topoi of modesty, polemics, careful selection and focalization of facts and arguments etc. Self-fashioning is here not meant as Augustine’s attempt to refl ect theoretically about the nature of the human self per se, where Augustine made important contributions to the history of thought, and which has been studied intensively in modern scholarship5.

II. Specifi c Instances and General Principles of Augustine’s Self-Fashioning

The most direct and extensive self-fashioning was undertaken by Augustine in his two quasi-autobiographical works, the Confessiones (written after he had become bishop, around 400), and the Retractationes (written towards the end of his life, 426/427)6. Eugène Portalié has said that the Confes-siones contained the story of Augustine’s soul or life, the Retractationes the history of his mind or works7. Both works have been characterized as displaying the “deep personal humility” of their author8. As early as in 1930, a more differentiated statement was offered by Adolf Dyroff who conceded that Augustine was ‘doing truth’ (John 3:21) when he found a verbal model (‘Wortmodell’) in order to express in a good way truthful things9. Such a statement is more inclined to acknowledge the rhetorical and textual layers that are between an author’s intention and its reception through the reader on the one hand and between an author’s statement and actual fact on the other. More often than not rhetoricized writings in

3 J.R. Dugan, How to make (and break) a Cicero: “epideixis”, textuality and self-fashioning in the “pro Archia” and “in Pisonem”, ClA 20, 2001, 35-77.

4 C. Edwards, Self-Scrutiny and Self-Transformation in Seneca’s Letters, GaR 44, 1987, 23-28.

5 E.g. P. Cary, Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self, Oxford 2000, and J. Cavadini, The Darkest Enigma: Reconsidering the Self in Augustine’s Thought, AugSt 38, 2007, 119-132.

6 G. Misch, Geschichte der Autobiographie, Frankfurt am Main 31950, 693-701.7 E. Portalié, Art. Augustine of Hippo, CE 2, 1907, (84-104) 89.8 See already Possid., vita Aug. praefatio 6; and M.F. Eller, The “Retractationes” of Saint

Augustine, ChH 18, 1949, (172-183) 172.9 A. Dyroff, Aurelius Augustinus, Köln 1939, 30.

Augustine between His Own Self-Fashioning and His Later Reception 411

Antiquity, Late Antiquity and beyond have had the function not to relate faithfully certain facts but to persuade the readership of how certain facts should be viewed and judged. Augustine was a master of this technique and certainly applies it in these two works as well.

Augustine generally moulds himself as someone progressing in under-standing rather than as an innovator, but indeed exactly his two quasi-autobiographical writings are radically innovative, having no real literary parallel in antiquity10. In his Confessiones he shapes himself as a paradigm of God’s grace, as someone who, under God’s constant protection, had been searching for truth for a long time and fi nally arrived there. The ef-fect of this self-stylization or narrative strategy can for instance be seen in the famous statement by Petrarch, Secretum I 6.3, that he read the Confessiones as his own pilgrimage11.

But in the context of this contribution we are more interested in Augus-tine’s self-fashioning as an intellectual writer than as a converted Christian; therefore we will pay attention to his technique in the Retractationes, a highly original instance of self-reception in order to control the reception of his writings by others12. At the end of his life Augustine went through

10 B. Altaner, Beiträge zur Kenntnis des schriftstellerischen Schaffens Augustins, in: idem, Kleine patristische Schriften, TU 83, Berlin 1967, (3-56) 38 (about the Confessiones), as well as 17 and A. Mutzenbecher, Einleitung, in: Sancti Aurelii Augustini Retractationum Libri II, edidit Almut Mutzenbecher, CChr.SL 57, Turnhout 1984, (xiii-lxxi) xv (about the Retractationes). For the specifi c genre of the Confessiones see E. Feldmann, Das literarische Genus und das Gesamtkonzept der Confessiones, in: N. Fischer/C. Mayer (eds.), Die Confessiones des Augustinus von Hippo, Freiburg im Breisgau 1998, 11-59. For the Retractationes one could compare Galen’s two treatises, De libris propriis and De ordine librorum suorum, also written towards the end of his life, with the aim of securing the copyright of his authentic works, as it were, and of demonstrating the overall pedagogical plan behind his oeuvre.

11 Petrarca, Secretum I 6.3 (D.A. Carozza/H.J. Shey, Petrarch’s Secretum with Introduction, Notes, and Critical Anthology, New York 1989, 49): Letis non sine lacrimis interdum legere me arbitrer non alienam sed propriam mee peregrinationis historiam.

12 Already Erasmus was aware of this intention, cf. his Censura in Libros Retractationum et Confessionum Divi Augustini, in: Augustini Opera omnia, vol. 1 (Basel 1528-1529), 44f.: Erasmus places the Confessiones and the Retractationes at the beginning, since it is good to know an author before reading his works; we are more prone to learn from those we like. It used to be established to celebrate the deeds of excellent men in orations and works. This example came from the army to the intellectuals, from the Greeks to the Romans and barbarians and from leaders and philosophers to bishops. Augustine, seeing that this often caused many misrepresentations for various reasons, wanted to be his own historiographer (perspiciens itaque frequenter in historiis huiusmodi multum falsitatis inveniri, sive immodico studio, sive errore scriptoris, sive etiam inopia fi dei, ac laudis amore, maluit ipse sui historiographus esse), for he knew that he would know himself better than others would (I am grateful to Dr Arnoud Visser for this reference). This statement echoes Possid., vita Aug. praefatio 6. For the Retractationes see in par-ticular A. Harnack, Die Retractationes Augustins, SPAW.PH 2, Berlin 1905, 1096-1131 (still important), and J. de Ghellinck, Les Rétractations de saint Augustin, examen de conscience de l’écrivain, NRTh 57, 1930, 481-500 (= only slightly changed in idem, Patristique et Moyen Age, vol. 3, Gembloux 21961, 341-365), and G. Madec, Introduc-tion aux “Révisions” et à la lecture des œuvres de Saint Augustin, Collection des Études augustiniennes. Série Antiquité 150, Paris 1996, with bibliography.

412 Karla Pollmann

all his works of 93 treatises in 232 volumes in order to comment on them critically wherever he found it necessary. This is an enterprise he had already in mind as early as 412, expressed in a letter to Marcellinus:

Si enim mihi deus, quod volo, praestiterit, ut omnium librorum meorum quae-cumque mihi rectissime displicent, opere aliquo ad hoc ipsum instituto colligam atque demonstrem, tunc videbunt homines, quam non sim acceptor personae meae13.

For if God should allow me, what I wish, to gather together and point out in some work devoted to this express purpose, all the things which most justly displease me in all my books, then people shall see how I am not uncritically biased in favour of my own person14.

It is noteworthy that this project seems to have taken shape in his mind when his quarrels with the Pelagians began to intensify (from 411 onwards), because it was the Pelagians in particular who had the unpleasant habit of quoting Augustine against himself15. It is also noteworthy that already as early as 412 Augustine became aware (and made others aware) of the power of his writings which triggered questions analogous to the biblical writings16, that some of his friends maintained the position that Augustine nowhere in his writings made a mistake17, that he had enemies or critics who were either malicious or ignorant or of superior intelligence18, and that words once uttered cannot be recalled19. Augustine concedes that the works he wrote and which have already been read by so many cannot

13 Aug., epist. 143.2 (CSEL 44, 251,23-252,4 Goldbacher).14 Unless mentioned otherwise, the English translations are always made by Karla Poll-

mann.15 It seems that this is the main task of the Retractationes anyway, to proof Augustine’s

argument as watertight against any Pelagian accusations and criticisms, the rest seems to be more by-work. Interestingly, already in epist. 143 he deals with issues of the soul and free will and grace and discusses his De libero arbitrio, which was an important issue in his anti-Pelagian discussions. This is evident from retr. I 9, where on seven pages (in the edition of Mutzenbecher) Augustine defends his De libero arbitrio mainly against Pelagian criticism, emphasizing that his ‘orthodox’ framework had already been fi xed then, even if he did not fi ll in every detail, highlighting that his opponents were in this case the Manichees, and not the Pelagians which did not yet exist at that time, and fi nally that even in his early years he never said anything to support the Pelagians in their misguided underestimation of the importance of grace (just for comparison: e.g. the Confessiones do only get one page in retr. II 6). Moreover, perhaps not so surprisingly but still tellingly, Prosper, Pro Augustino responsiones ad excerpta Genuensium 1-3 (PL 51, 190A Migne) in 431/432 highlights this as a major purpose of the Retractationes. On this see also J. Burnaby, The “Retractationes” of Saint Augustine: Self-criticism or Apologia?, AugM 1, Paris 1954, (85-92) 88f., and Madec, Introduction (see note 12), 105-114.

16 Cf. Aug., epist. 143.2 (251,6-8 G.): Illae autem litterae tuae, quas presbyter Urbanus adtulit, habent quaestionem mihi propositam ex libris non divinis sed meis.

17 Cf. Aug., epist. 143.3 (252,5-8 G.): Vos autem, qui me multum diligitis, […] ut me nusquam scriptorum meorum erasse dicatis.

18 Cf. Aug., epist. 143.3 (252,6f. G.): Adversus eos quorum malitia vel imperitia vel intel-ligentia reprehendor.

19 Cf. Aug., epist. 143.4 (254,2f. G.).

Augustine between His Own Self-Fashioning and His Later Reception 413

be corrected, but that he himself may, being still alive20. He also makes a distinction between his more hastily published works and those to which he devoted or intended to devote more care21. He is also aware of a hierarchy of his writings, with treatises like De trinitate only to be understood by a few and therefore less urgent than e.g. his Enarrationes in Psalmos which are to be read by many more and therefore more urgent to be fi nished22. Augustine had no time anymore to revise his numerous letters or sermons, although this had also been his plan23. A very important point which has been noticed in scholarship is that the title Retractationes by no means indicates that this work is solely occupied with retracting statements from Augustine’s works. Its title is more appropriately rendered “Review” or “Revisions”24.

The Retractationes consists of two sections: the fi rst deals with the writings Augustine had composed as a layman and priest; in 26 treatises, he fi nds 167 places to revise. The second section handles texts Augustine wrote as a bishop; here he fi nds, in 67 works, 52 places to correct. Au-gustine clearly suggests progress in his writing, with a diminishing need of correction. This is confi rmed by the chronological arrangement of his works and his explicit statement in the prologue:

20 Cf. Aug., epist. 143.7 (257,7-10 G.): Neque enim eos inventuros nego [scil. hostes], unde mihi et benefi cium conferant, quoniam, si illi [scil. libri], quod iam in multorum manus exierunt, corrigi non possunt, ego certe, quod vivo adhuc, possum.

21 Cf. Aug., epist. 143.4.7; more care devoted e.g. to De libero arbitrio, De trinitate, De Genesi ad litteram.

22 Cf. Aug., epist. 169.1 (CSEL 44, 612,1-10 Goldbacher).23 Cf. Aug., retr. prologus 1 (CChr.SL 57, 5,2-6 Mutzenbecher): Iam diu est ut facere cogito

atque dispono, quod nunc adiuvante domino adgredior, quia differendum esse non arbitror, ut opuscula mea, sive in libris sine in epistulis sive in tractatibus, cum quadam iudicaria severitate recenseam, et quod me offendit velut censorio stilo denotem; cf. also epist. 224.2. Madec, Introduction (see note 12), 14 insists that one cannot decide whether the prologue was written before or after the completion of the Retractationes, and rightly follows L.J. van der Lof, Augustin a-t-il changé d’intention pendant la composition des “Retractationes”?, Aug(L) 16, 1966, 5-10, against Burnaby, The “Retractationes” of Saint Augustine (see note 15), that Augustine from the beginning had more than mere ‘retractions’ in mind.

24 Cf. Aug., epist. 224.2 (CSEL 57, 452,18-453,2 Goldbacher): Nam retractabam opuscula mea et, si quid in eis me offenderet vel alios posset offendere, partim reprehendendo partim defendendo, quod legi posset et deberet, operabar. Cf. Burnaby, The “Retractationes” of Saint Augustine (see note 15), especially 85-87, and Eller, The “Retractationes” of Saint Augustine (see note 8), 173, also for the following, for which see also Mutzenbecher, Einleitung (see note 10), xiii. Possid., vita Aug. 28.1f. (around 432 AD) uses for the Re-tractationes the title De recensione librorum, and characterizes them as a self-censoring work where Augustine rebukes and corrects whatever he said in his works differing from the ecclesiastica regula and ecclesiasticus usus. Already Erasmus defi ned the Retractationes as ‘revisions’ in a letter to Thomas de Vio Caietanus (dated Freiburg, 23 July 1532), his epist. 2690 (Opus epistolarium Des. Erasmi Roterodami denuo recognitum et auctum per P.S. Allen, tomus X: 1532-1534, Oxford 1941, 67,18-22): Ego non paulo fui severior in meas lucubrationes quam in suas fuit Augustinus, qui retractationem appellat, non palin-odiam, sed recensionem suorum operum, ne quid intercideret. Quanquam obiter quaedam corrigit haud magni momenti, nonnulla defendit haud absque specie tergiversationis.

414 Karla Pollmann

Quapropter quicumque ista lecture sunt, non me imitentur errantem, sed in melius profi cientem. Inveniet enim fortasse quomodo scribendo profecerim, quisquis opuscula mea ordine quo scripta sunt, legerit. Quod ut possit, hoc opera quantum potero curabo, ut eundem ordinem noverit25.

Whosoever reads these works, should not imitate me as erring but as someone who is making progress towards the better. For whosoever reads my works in the sequence in which they have been written, will perhaps fi nd how I made progress through writing. That he is able to do this I will take care to the best of my ability in this work that he will know that same sequence.

Augustine clearly does not think that he peaked somewhere in his middle years, but that he was on a constant move upwards regarding his intel-lectual activity26. Similarly he says in De dono perseverantiae that he did not start out as someone perfect but progressed during his lifetime and that therefore not everything in his works should be followed uncritically, wherefore he writes now the Retractiones as a guide27, and continues:

bonae quippe spei est homo, si eum sic profi cientem dies ultimus vitae huius invenerit, ut adiciantur ei quae profi cienti defuerunt, et perfi ciendus quam pu-niendus potius iudicetur28.

For human beings are then of good hope when the last day of this life will accomplish them in those things which they, while making progress, were still lacking, and when they will be judged rather to have to be perfected than to be punished.

This last sentence alludes to Augustine’s (or indeed anybody’s) desired eschatological state at the day of the fi nal judgment: perfection rather than punishment. However, as often with eschatological statements, they also say something about one’s opinion about mechanisms in this life29. So Augustine wishes to be received by later generations (as indeed by God himself, although he signifi cantly is not explicit about this) as someone who is still in need of perfection rather than as someone who has to be condemned for his wrong opinions.

25 Aug., retr. prologus 3 (6,50-7,54 M.); very similar already in his epist. 143.2 (251,12-14 G.): Ego proinde fateor me ex eorum numero esse conari, qui profi ciendo scribunt et scribendo profi ciunt.

26 Already Altaner, Beiträge (see note 10), 10f. admires the unstinting brilliance of the ‘senex Augustinus’.

27 Cf. Aug., persev. 55 (PL 45, 1027f. Migne): Quamvis neminem velim sic amplecti omnia mea, ut me sequatur, nisi in iis in quibus me non erasse perspexerit. nam propterea nunc facio libros, in quibus opuscula mea retractanda suscepi, ut nec me ipsum in omnibus me secutum fuisse demonstrem; sed profi cienter me existimo deo miserante scripsisse, non tamen a perfectione coepisse.

28 Aug., persev. 55 (1028 M.).29 K. Pollmann, Moulding the Present: Apocalyptic as Hermeneutics in City of God 21-22,

in: M. Vessey/K. Pollmann/A. Fitzgerald (eds.), History, Apocalypse, and the Secular Imagination, AugSt 30, 1999, 165-181.

Augustine between His Own Self-Fashioning and His Later Reception 415

But beyond these explicit self-fashioning statements we can see that in the Retractationes Augustine has not only the aim of correcting some of his thought but also to demonstrate a certain consistency in his think-ing. Indeed there is an interesting pattern one can observe in the way he treats the various different types of his works. In those works which he already in the prologue highlights as standing in the pagan tradition of thinking (when he was “still infl ated with secular learning”30), Augustine is very generous, indeed merciless, in conceding mistakes, especially factual ones. Many of them belong to his early period of writing when he was still exploring concepts, often in free exchange with friends he perceived as his equals. This can also be observed in the correspondence from his early years after his conversion and before he became a presbyter and then bishop31, but also in Epistula 37, which accompanies the two books of Ad Simplicianum, where Augustine assures Simplicianus, Ambrose’s successor as bishop of Milan, that whatever in these writings merits the addressee’s approbation is from God and urges him:

ut […] non solum curam legentis impendas, sed etiam censuram corrigentis assumes32.

that […] you will not only take pains to read them [scil. Augustine’s writings], but also accept the charge of reviewing and correcting them.

Similarly, when he revises his exegetical treatises he willingly concedes the possibility of progress and admits failure, especially in his earlier years when he was not yet that experienced in interpreting the Bible33. Often he admits a variety of possible interpretations (in theory in De doctrina christiana34 and in De Genesi ad litteram35; in practice in De Genesi ad litteram36 and other commentaries, like e.g. the Enarrationes in psalmos). He does not want the Bible to be confi rmed, but explained37. But when it comes to his dogmatic, including his anti-heretical writings, Augustine is keen to prove consistency in his thinking as far as possible. He claims that in a certain context a certain dogmatic point did not have to be made but was implicitly there, or he corrects hostile interpretations of heretical adversaries by pointing out that they overlooked (on purpose or not) other

30 Cf. Aug., retr. prologus 3 (6,46f. M.): adhuc saecularium litterarum infl atus.31 Cf. e.g. Aug., epist. 15.32 Aug., epist. 37 (CChr.SL 31, 155,30f. Daur).33 See also M.J. Lagrange, Les rétractations exégétiques de saint Augustin, in: Miscellanea

Agostiniana 2, Rome 1931, 373-395.34 Cf. K. Pollmann, Doctrina Christiana: Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der christlichen

Hermeneutik unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Augustinus, De doctrina christiana, Par. 41, Fribourg 1996, 156-159; eadem, Augustine’s Hermeneutics as a Universal Dis-cipline!?, in: eadem/M. Vessey (eds.), Augustine and the Disciplines, Oxford 2005, (206-231) 218f.223f.

35 K. Pollmann, Augustine, Genesis and Controversy, AugSt 38, 2007, 203-216.36 See again Pollmann, Moulding the Present (see note 29).37 Cf. Aug., epist. 167.4 (CSEL 44, 591,13 Goldbacher): Exponi volo, non confi rmari.

416 Karla Pollmann

passages in the same writing where he makes the point they accuse him of not making. Finally, regarding such writings, Augustine will even use factual or exegetical corrections to strengthen his argument against his heretical opponents38. It is very rare and only regarding ‘minor’ aspects that Augustine criticises or corrects a strictly theological statement of his.

A similar pattern can be observed in his writings in general including the more casual letters and sermons. Augustine can be the disciplinarian, authoritative bishop laying down rules for nuns (Epistula 211) or referring to the authority of Church tribunals (Epistula 144.3); he is willing to learn about the nature of our resurrected body if something better than what he thinks is proposed39, but he is not willing to change his mind about the incorporeal nature of God40. Similarly, he concedes that he is not certain about the origin of the soul, but that he is certain about the perdition of unbaptized children (Epistula 166.28). He is aware that with his studies he may do some service even to future generations (Epistula 151.13). Strik-ingly, he can be tolerant if various people or congregations have different opinions or habits regarding rituals, like baptism of children as opposed to adults (Epistula 166.24) or foot-washing (Epistula 55.33), but can also be authoritative about liturgical and ceremonial matters (Epistula 55).

Moreover, we can fi nd splinters of direct self-fashioning throughout his work, expressed in smallish, almost casual remarks or directive com-ments on how he sees himself with regard to statements uttered by him. They can vary from the assertive, not to say aggressive and polemical, especially in his anti-heretical (e.g. De Genesi contra Manichaeos41) and anti-pagan works (De civitate dei) to the modifi ed confi dence in works directed towards Christians where he would normally invoke the help-ful grace of God42, to the very modest, even doubtful attitude especially in his exegetical works directed at Christians (De Genesi ad litteram in

38 Cf. Eller, The “Retractationes” of Saint Augustine (see note 8), 182.39 Cf. Aug., epist. 148.18; but currently he thinks there is not yet anything fi t to be taught

or learnt, cf. Aug., epist. 148.16.40 Cf. Aug., epist. 148.1-4 and epist. 148.13 where he emphasizes not to be alone and not

to be the fi rst with this opinion.41 Pollmann, Augustine, Genesis and Controversy (see note 35), 207f.42 Cf. e.g. Aug., doctr. chr. I 1; III 56 (CChr.SL 32, 7,17-21; 116,47 Martin), and retr.

prologus 1 (5,2f. M.). Cf. V.H. Drecoll, Etiam posteris aliquid profuturum: Zur Selbst-stilisierung bei Augustin und der Beeinfl ussung der eigenen Wirkungsgeschichte durch Bücher und Bibliothek, REAug 47, 2002, (313-335) 331f. It has to be borne in mind that the concept of grace can be moulded and indeed abused in ways wholly against Augustine’s intention. For him, grace has predominantly to do with humility, i.e. to acknowledge the prevalent necessity of grace means to free oneself from both a pagan arrogance of “we can do this as humans ourselves” and from a Christian arrogance of “we are saved and therefore always right”. In practice, however, the acclamation of grace can indeed also lead to the kind of Christian arrogance Augustine was so desperate to combat. On grace and humility see the excellent book by G. Bonner, Freedom and Necessity: St. Augustine’s Teaching on Divine Power and Human Freedom, Washington 2007, 93-96, and also the judicious sketch by V.H. Drecoll, ‘Ungerechte Gnadenlehre’: Zeitgenössische Anfragen an Augustin und ihr Einfl uß auf seine Gnadenlehre, in: C.

Augustine between His Own Self-Fashioning and His Later Reception 417

particular)43. As a leitmotif Augustine asserts that truth in his works comes from God, errors from himself (see already Epistula 19), an idea also familiar from his thoughts about divine grace. Finally, there are the more indirect features of self-fashioning where the very pattern of the argu-ment creates a certain persona speaking in a work: either an open-minded partner in a discussion allowing for various different possible opinions or perspectives, or the rigorous defender of the only true possible opinion abolishing or destroying all other alternative modes of thinking, and the whole spectrum between these two extreme poles. Of course the crucial question is whether this strategy worked, and how later readers dealt with these features of self-fashioning so characteristic of Augustine’s writing throughout. The following intends to illustrate this with a few examples from the early Middle Ages.

III. Early Medieval Instances of Augustine’s Reception in the Light of His Self-Fashioning

Augustine’s enterprise of the Retractationes was immediately accepted, vis-ible from a letter by Hilary of Gaul (a layman, and perhaps a monk from Southern Gaul, involved in the dispute about grace)44 to Augustine:

Libros, cum editi fuerint, quos de universo opere moliris, quaeso habere merea-mur, maxime ut per eorum auctoritatem, si qua tibi in tuis displicent, a dignitate tui nominis iam non trepidi sequestremus45.

I request that I merit to possess, when they will have been published, those books which you have engineered about your entire work, most importantly in order that, based on their authority, we remove then without anxiety from the dignity of your name whatever may displease you in your book.

Again it is striking that the Retractationes elicited particular interest in the context of the quarrels between Augustine and the monks of Gaul regarding his thoughts about grace. A very important refl ection of the effect of the Retractationes is the Epistula decretalis pro confi rmatione quintae synodi oecumenicae (written in 553), by Pope Vigilius:

[…] kaˆ m£lista tÕn makariètaton AÙgoust‹non tÕn ™kl£myanta ™n to‹j qe…oij lÒgoij, tÁj `Rwma#kÁj eÙglwtt…aj did£skalon ¢nayhlafÁsa… te toÝj o„ke…ouj

Mayer/A.E.J. Grote/C. Müller (eds.), Gnade – Freiheit – Rechtfertigung: Augustinische Topoi und ihre Wirkungsgeschichte, AAWLM.G 2007/3, Stuttgart 2007, 25-40.

43 Here one has to separate carefully a more playful, rhetoricising modesty (as in some sermons and letters) from a genuine acknowledgement of aporia (as in De Genesi ad litteram).

44 For this Hilarius (‘Hilarius IV’) see H.C. Brennecke, Art. Hilarius, AugL 3, 2006, (341-348) 347.

45 Aug., epist. 226.10 (CSEL 57, 479,14-17 Goldbacher).

418 Karla Pollmann

lÒgouj kaˆ diorqèsasqai t¦ aÙtù e„rhmšna kaˆ t¦ paraleifqšnta, met¦ taàta d{ eØreqšnta prosteqeikšnai46.

[…] the blessed Augustine, who was so illustrious in the Divine Scriptures, and a master in Roman eloquence, retracted some of his own writings, and cor-rected some of his own sayings, and added what he had omitted and afterward found out.

Because of its institutional prominence this passage could potentially have very wide implications. A bit later, Cassiodorus, in his Institutiones divi-narum et humanarum lectionum I 16.4 (ca. 560 AD), praises the Retrac-tationes as a model for everyone who wants to learn how to re-examine one’s own writings and retract from any infelicitous opinion. He adds that divine indulgence has given Augustine so much wisdom that

quem nemo poterat fortasse reprehendere, ipse se videatur cautissima retracta-tione corrigere47.

he himself whom perhaps no one else was able to reprehend, appears to correct himself in most careful retraction.

Augustine himself, however, had written in the already mentioned Epistu-la 143.2-4 of critics who are worthy of criticizing him because of their superior intelligence and/or their stern impartiality.

Bede (672/673-735)48 is one of the rare writers who himself adopts the genre of Augustine’s Retractationes and invokes Augustine explicitly as his model. Bede, Retractatio in actus apostolorum, praefatio (AD 725/731), accepts Augustine’s claim of having made progress (de suo magis profectu gavisus) and wishes in the same spirit (cuius industriam nobis quoque pro modulo nostro placuit imitari) to correct his earlier Expositio actuum apo-stolorum, by adding things where he had not been suffi ciently extensive and to emend places where he had said things differently from what pleased him (studio maxime vel addendi quae minus dicta vel emendandi quae secus quam placuit dicta videbantur)49. Moreover, Bede was instrumental in the process of establishing the Latin canon of the four “pre-eminent Teachers of the Church” (egregii doctores ecclesiae; offi cially recognized

46 Vigilius, Epistola decretalis pro confi rmatione quintae synodi oecumenicae (ACO IV/1, 246,10-12 Straub); translation: A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Second Series […], vol. 14: The Seven Ecumenical Councils, Ox-ford 1899 (Reprint Grand Rapids 1977), (321-323) 322. I am grateful to Dr Vladimir Cvetkovic for this reference.

47 Cf. Cassiod., inst. div. I 16,4 (Cassiodori Senatoris Institutiones. Edited from the manu-scripts by R.A.B. Mynors, Oxford 1937 [Reprint 1961], 54,28-55,2).

48 In the following analysis, I will not take into account the reception of stories and legends around Augustine’s life as they are reported by later authors, although they were of course much read and referred to in the Middle Ages. For Bede see e.g. his Vita Cuthberti 38, where he refers to Possid., vita Aug. 29, which narrates of the miraculous healing powers of Augustine on his deathbed.

49 Cf. Beda, Retractatio in actus apostolorum praefatio (CChr.SL 121, 103,2-13 Laist-ner).

Augustine between His Own Self-Fashioning and His Later Reception 419

by Pope Boniface VIII in 1295), namely Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great50. He was the fi rst to single out these four names in the preface to his In Lucae evangelium Expositio and to draw atten-tion to them by adding abbreviations of their names as source marks on the margins of his commentaries on Luke and on Mark when he referred to their writings (AM, AV, GR, HI), while other authors are referred to within the text itself51. However, it is not the authority of the written work that is thus acknowledged, but the authority of the person who wrote52. Moreover, Bede wished to avoid the charge of plagiarism, and he was more scrupulous than others of his time in acknowledging his sources53. On a large scale Bede adopts Augustine’s vision of the church in pilgrim-age and in heaven as expounded in the De civitate dei54. He can use the authority of Augustine to defend a relatively untraditional view, e.g. when he identifi es symbolically the evangelist Mark with the human being and Matthew with the lion, instead of the more established tradition which has it the other way round, which began with Irenaeus and Origen, and was transferred into the Latin world by Jerome55.

In the prologue to his commentary on Genesis (Libri Quatuor in Prin-cipium Genesis), Bede demonstrates awareness of the problem that there are numerous earlier commentaries on Genesis, and that especially Au-gustine commented on this biblical text several times, although only on Genesis chapters 1 to 3. Bede claims to offer a collection from all of these sources both in order to instruct the beginner and inexperienced reader of the Bible, and in order to offer to the already educated reader a platform from which to advance further in understanding. He intends to do this by partly quoting these sources literally, partly paraphrasing them in his own words, partly acknowledging his sources and partly not56. Thus, in

50 Beda, In Lucae evangelium expositio prologus (CChr.SL 120, 5,1-6,48; 7,93-115 Hurst). Interestingly, in his early readings Bede did, apart from classical pagan authors, only know Jerome as an early Christian writer, see R. Davis, Bede’s Early Reading, Spec. 8, 1933, 179-195, and in general P. Meyvaert, Benedict, Gregory, Bede and Others, London 1977, 40-69 (chapter IX).

51 Cf. D. Hurst, Praefatio, in: Bedae Venerabilis Opera, pars II: Opera Exegetica, vol. III: In Lucae evangelium expositio. In Marci evangelium expositio, CChr.SL 120, Turnhout 1960, (v-vii) v.

52 See B. Ward, The Venerable Bede, London 1990, 60f., and B.M. Kaczynski, Bede’s Com-mentaries on Luke and Mark and the Formation of a Patristic Canon, in: S. Echard/G.R. Wieland (eds.), Anglo-Latin and Its Heritage: Essays in honour of A.R. Rigg on his 64th birthday, The Journal of Medieval Latin. Publications 4, Turnhout 2001, (17-26) 19f.23f.

53 Cf. Kaczynski, Commentaries (see note 52), 23.54 Cf. Ward, The Venerable Bede (see note 52), 74; J. Davidse, Beda Venerabilis’ Interpretatie

van de Historische Werkelijkheid (dissertation Amsterdam 1976), Groningen 1976.55 Cf. Ward, The Venerable Bede (see note 52), 53f., referring to Aug., cons. eu. I 9.56 Cf. Beda, In principium Genesis praefatio (CChr.SL 118A, 1,3f.; 1,18-2,33 Jones): De

principio libri Genesis, in quo mundi hujus creatio descripta est multi multa dixere […]. Verum quia haec tam copiosa, tam sunt alta, ut vix nisi a locupletioribus tot volumina acquiri, tam profunda, ut vix nisi ab eruditioribus valeant perscrutari, placuit vestrae

420 Karla Pollmann

this commentary we cannot fi nd any source marks for authorities on the margins as in his commentaries on Mark and Luke57. Generally it can be noted that, “as with the commentaries on the New Testament, it is in his use of the Fathers in combination with his own insights that Bede’s originality lies”58.

In his already mentioned commentary on Genesis, the matter is even more complicated because of the intricate mode of this work’s composition. Presumably between 703 and 70959, Bede wrote a fi rst part (commenting up to Gen 2:4), dealing with the problems of the nature of the physical world, chronology, and calculations of the date of Easter, culminating in an allegorical interpretation of the fi rst six days of creation as prefi guring the six ages of human history. Although “verbally holding close to ac-ceptable patristic sources […] it is a personal and original composition”60. The second part of book I, commenting on Gen 2:4-3:24 (expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise), was evidently composed in a hurry and is merely a collectaneum, derived overwhelmingly and often word for word from Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram61. Only much later (725 to 73162) he composed Books II to IV, covering Gen 3:25-21:10 (birth of Isaac and ejection of Ishmael), a mature, authoritative and independent work, clearly written in order to emulate the early Christian writers, none of whom had ever commented on the book of Genesis in its entirety. These three differ-ent stages of composition are clearly refl ected in the varying techniques of reception of Augustine, the source most often referred to by Bede in this commentary, other than the Bible, and closely followed by references to Jerome. Among Augustine’s writings, De Genesi ad litteram is most frequently referred to (132 times), followed by the De civitate dei (122 times), but De Genesi contra Manichaeos (29 times) and De Genesi ad litteram liber imperfectus (14 times), and twelve other works of Augus-tine, are also used63. The predominant portion of these references occur

sanctitati id nobis offi cii injungere, ut de omnibus his, velut de amoenissimis late fl oren-tis paradisi campis, quae infi rmorum viderentur necessitati suffi cere decerperemus. Nec segnior in exsequendo quae jubere es dignatus exstiti; quin potius statim perspectis Patrum voluminibus, collegi ex his, ac duobus in libellis distinxi, quae rudem adhuc possent instituere lectorem, quibus eruditus ad altiorem disceret fortioremque majorum ascendere lectionem. In quo opere sensum per omnia memoratorum aliorumque aeque catholicorum Patrum, nunc ipsis eorum, nunc, breviandi causa, meis sermonibus, nunc tacitis eorum vocabulis, nunc commemoratis, prout opportunitas locorum dictabat, ponere studebam.

57 Cf. C.W. Jones, Introduction, in: Bedae Venerabilis Opera, pars II: Opera Exegetica, vol. I: Libri quatuor in principium Genesis, cura et studio C.W. Jones, CChr.SL 118A, Turnhout 1967, (i-x) iii.

58 Ward, The Venerable Bede (see note 52), 69.59 Cf. Jones, Introduction (see note 57), viii.60 Cf. Jones, Introduction (see note 57), vii.61 Cf. Jones, Introduction (see note 57), viii.62 Cf. Jones, Introduction (see note 57), ix.63 These fi gures are based on the (not entirely reliable) index in the Jones-edition: Indices,

in: Jones (ed.), Bedae Venerabilis Opera, pars II, vol. I (see note 57), (243-268) 254-258.

Augustine between His Own Self-Fashioning and His Later Reception 421

in Book I (with the exception of the De civitate dei and Contra Faustum, which are mostly used in Book II). Especially in the second half of Book I which was composed in a hurry, we fi nd large junks of presumptively verbatim quotations from Augustine, only occasionally with the explicit acknowledgment of Augustine as the source.

Particularly striking is Bede’s ‘gearshift’ at the end of the fi rst part of Book I of his commentary on Genesis, where he declares that he has explained Genesis suffi ciently in its literal meaning64, following of course predominantly, although not exclusively, Augustine’s De Genesi ad lit-teram. Now he wants to say a few words about the analogy between the fi rst days of creation and the world ages65, following Augustine’s mainly allegorical De Genesi contra Manichaeos. Thus Bede ignores Augustine’s own revocation in De Genesi ad litteram VIII 2.5 that in his earlier De Genesi contra Manichaeos he was not yet able to fi nd the proper literal sense of the events in Paradise, whereas now, more than 15 years later, with more expertise and knowledge he felt able to do this. Bede thinks that the earlier thought of Augustine might suit him better than that of the later, more ‘progressed’ Augustine, or that both of them can be com-bined. Moreover, he follows Augustine here in a more allusive fashion, partly also altering him considerably in order to develop his own ideas. Bede is diffi cult to understand in places, unless one is already familiar with Augustine, so that his allegorical explanation of the fi rst days of creation is something like a coda for the more advanced students66. This in fact turns Augustine on his heels, as he is of the opinion that the literal sense is the more challenging one. Potentially, this procedure is justifi ed by the caveat Augustine expresses about De Genesi ad litteram in Retractationes I 18 and II 24.1 that even in this mature exegetical work more questions were raised than answered.

For Augustine in De Genesi ad litteram creation took place in one instant, in the so-called simultaneous creation. ‘One day’ of creation was not in reference to time but to causality, the six days did not denote a tem-poral sequence but had a symbolic, indeed special and important, symbolic

See also P. Siniscalco, Due opera a confronto sulla creazione dell’uomo: Il “De Genesi ad Litteram libri XII” di Agostino e i “Libri IV in Principium Genesis” di Beda, Aug. 25, 1985, 435-452, and A. di Pilla, La presenza del De Genesi contra Manichaeos di Agostino nell’ ‘In principium Genesis’ di Beda, in: G. Pelland/G. Balido/J. Ries/A. di Pilla/M. Marin (eds.), “De Genesi contra Manichaeos”, “De Genesi ad litteram liber imperfectus” di Agostino d’Ippona, Lectio Augustini 8, Palermo 1992, 99-113.

64 Cf. Beda, princ. Gen. I 2.3 (35,1093f. J.): Huc usque de primordia mundi nascentis iuxta sensum litterae dixisse suffi ciat.

65 Cf. Beda, princ. Gen. I 2.3 (35,1094-36,1096 J.): Libet autem paucis intimare ut etiam ordo sex illorum sive septem dierum in quibus fatus est totidem eius aetatibus conveniat.

66 Cf. for this the general remarks of Anon. (author not named), Bede’s Commentary on the Six Days of Creation and the Six Ages of the World in In Genesim I.1093-1224: Sources and Analogues (Dissertation 2005; http://tartarus.org/verity/Bede_ug; accessed 02/08/07), 10-16. The issue deserves, however, a much more detailed analysis.

422 Karla Pollmann

meaning. In contrast to the slightly later Eriugena (see below) and others, Bede did not accept this theory, but claimed that God used the six days of 24 hours to shape and order the elements according to the sequence of the biblical creation narrative67. Nevertheless, Bede mixes quotes from vari-ous of Augustine’s works in his Libri quatuor in principium Genesis, and whereas he uses other authors for specifi c questions, he turns to Augustine universally68. He accepts the contention of De Genesi ad litteram that the events described had a physical signifi cance, but he is also using allegory, partly again following Augustine closely: thus, he uses the potential that exists already in Augustine and exploits it further. Augustine’s overall authority is acknowledged, but Bede does not feel obliged to follow him in every detail, let alone in crucial theories69.

Eriugena’s (810-877) masterpiece Periphyseon is a philosophical treatise in fi ve books in the form of a catechetical dialogue on how nature may be investigated as a unity of essence, creative power, and action. In this work Eriugena adopts Augustine’s theory of a simultaneous creation, and he is interested in the literal meaning of Genesis (secundum historiam). Moreover, he uses Augustine’s concept of the rationes seminales, a kind of generative principle created by God at the beginning which would ensure the later development of natural species:

generaliter autem in omnibus sex primorum dierum operibus intelligendum est, ubicunque scriptura commemorat: Dixit deus: Fiat lux, fi at fi rmamentum, et caetera in reliquis diebus, primordialium causarum specialem conditionem signifi cari, quarum universaliter creatio nomine caeli et terrae praemissa est; ubicunque vero: Et facta est lux, Et fecit deus fi rmamentum, Et factum est ita, earundem primordialium causarum in effectus suos per genera et species processionem70.

But generally in all the works of the fi rst six days, wherever Scripture relates: ‘God said: let there be light, let there be fi rmament,’ and so on for the remaining days, this must be understood in the following way, namely that this indicates the special establishment of the primordial causes, whose creation is universally stated with the terms ‘heaven and earth’; but wherever it is said ‘and it was light, and God created the fi rmament, and it was so,’ this denotes the procession of the same primordial causes into their effects through the genera and species.

Generally, Eriugena favours Augustine, who is the only Latin source he engages with in all fi elds of learning, but he does not follow him all the time, sometimes criticising Augustine for not being clear enough about his

67 J. Zahlten, Creatio mundi. Darstellungen der sechs Schöpfungstage und naturwissen-schaftliches Weltbild im Mittelalter, Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Geschichte und Politik 13, Stuttgart 1979, 92f.

68 J.F. Kelly, Bede’s Use of Augustine for His Commentarium in principium Genesis, in: F. van Fleteren/J.C. Schnaubelt (eds.), Augustine: Biblical Exegete, New York 2001, (189-196) 190.

69 In general, as a historian he showed a preference for primary sources over secondary or tertiary ones.

70 Eriugena, Periphyseon III 27 (CChr.CM 163, 111,3217-3225 Jeauneau).

Augustine between His Own Self-Fashioning and His Later Reception 423

own opinion. He exploits Augustine’s own doubts and his concession that later generations may have a better insight. Generally he quotes Augustine accurately, by far most frequently De Genesi ad litteram, followed by De civtate dei, with the aim that they should support each other. Thus, Eriugena has a relatively systematic and organic approach to Augustine’s writings and is aware of contradictions and coherences, exploiting them for his own argument71. Sometimes Eriugena follows the Greek tradition which separates the temporal from the eternal in the ‘now’. Thus he misrepresents Augustine’s argument, who sees the human relation to the eternal as what might have been and what will be at the end of time, and not as what is. But it is clear that Eriugena himself thinks he is widening Augustine’s position, not distorting or refuting it altogether72.

IV. Some Conclusions

Interestingly, although the approaches of Bede and Eriugena to Augustine differ considerably, both these writers maintain a relatively independent attitude to his authority, which they acknowledge in principle, but do not hesitate to refute in particular. Generally we can note in the samples studied different tendencies in the reception of Augustine. Augustine’s self-fashioned ideas of progress and of the contextuality of his thinking more or less disappear in the early Middle Ages, with the exception of Eriugena. The proclaimed insecurity of Augustine is hardly ever referred to, he is an authority on which one can rely or to which one can refer almost as to the Bible itself, despite Augustine’s protestations against this in his Epistula 143.2 that his works do not admit of unanswerable vindica-tion; it is not impiety to reject what he says like in the case of the Bible, where the message is never false, but possibly our interpretation is. By later readers Augustine can be used instead of Greek sources, his version of the Bible can be quoted instead of the Vulgate. But maybe all this has less to do with his own authority rather than with the need of later ages to create such an authority73.

If we think of Augustine’s self-differentiation in his Retractationes of how to evaluate the various aspects and genres of his oeuvre, Bede and Eriugena did not always follow that. For instance, Eriugena sees Augustine often as in harmony with the pagan ancients, whom he rehabilitates with

71 J.J. O’Meara, Studies in Augustine and Eriugena, Washington 1992, 269-283.72 B. Stock, Observations on the Use of Augustine by J.S. Eriugena, HThR 60, 1967, (213-

220) 219.73 For a more detailed overview see K. Pollmann, Von der Aporie zum Code: Aspekte

der Rezeption von Augustins ‘De Genesi ad litteram’ bis auf Remigius von Auxerre († 908), in: N. Fischer (ed.), Augustinus – Spuren und Spiegelungen seines Denkens, Bd. 1, Stuttgart 2009, 19-36.

424 Karla Pollmann

Christian parallels like Augustine74. On the other hand he can disagree with him on points of doctrine, although he avoids to contradict him openly and adopts basic Augustinian hermeneutic principles75. Typical of both Bede and Eriugena76 is the wide range of uses they can put Augus-tine to and which, in the case of Bede, can even vary in what he later put together as one single work. Both will be critical and follow the author-ity that seems best to them, but, equally important, they both felt they needed an authority, perhaps especially when they wanted to support a new idea of their own.

To sum up, maybe I can close with some words by Augustine himself which seem to be prophetic about his own later reception:

profecto enim non me sed pro me alium sub meo nomine diligunt, si non quod sum, sed quod non sum, diligent77.

Assuredly they love not me, but instead of me another under my name, if they love not what I am, but what I am not.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

Wie andere Autoren vor und nach ihm war Augustinus von Hippo sich sehr bewusst, wie unterschiedlich seine Person und sein Werk von anderen rezipiert werden könnten. Daher versuchte er, sowohl die Rezeption seines Lebens, durch das Verfassen seiner Confessiones, als auch die Rezeption seiner Werke, durch das Abfassen der Retracta-tiones, zu kontrollieren. Dieser Aufsatz analysiert die verschiedenen Methoden, mit denen Augustinus besonders Letzteres zu erreichen versuchte. In einem zweiten Teil demonstriert dieser Aufsatz dann an zwei Einzelfällen (Beda Venerabilis und Johannes Scotus Eriugena), inwieweit dieses Ansinnen Augustins tatsächlich erfolgreich war.

74 B. Stock, In Search of Eriugena’s Augustine, in: W. Beierwaltes (ed.), Eriugena: Studien zu seinen Quellen, Heidelberg 1980, (85-104) 97.

75 G. Madec, Observations sur le dossier augustinien du “Peri Physeon”, in: Beierwaltes (ed.), Eriugena (see note 74), (75-84) 84.

76 Stock, In Search (see note 74), 97f.77 I.e. perfect; Aug., epist. 143.3 (252,11f. G.).