HUI216 Italian Civilization

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HUI216Italian Civilization

• Andrea Fedi

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14.1 St. Augustine (354-430)

• He was born in Thagaste (now Suk Arras, Algeria),
  and died in Hippo (South of the modern Bona)
• Was he a Berber?
• St. Monica was St. Augustine's mother. She was a
  Christian, while St. Augustine's father was a
  pagan
• In Chapt. 11-12 of book 9 of St. Augustine's
  Confessions, we can read about the circumstances
  of her death, in Milan, in the year 387, and we
  learn more about the relationship between mother
  and son. You can read the passage, if you want,
  athttp//www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.
  xii.html

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14.1 St. Augustine (354-430) the Manicheans, St.
Ambrose

• Augustine was influenced by the Manichean heresy
• Manicheans emphasized the battle of good vs.
  evil, considered two almost equal powers
• The temptation to embrace a dualistic vision of
  the universe, where everything is so reassuringly
  black and white, where two powerful forces such
  as Good and Evil fight over the control of human
  history, has always been very strong
• That simplification presupposes reasons to be
  Christian that appear easier to understand and,
  most importantly, easier to represent in the
  routines of daily life. It is less complicated to
  think of oneself as a soldier fighting a constant
  battle against sin and sinners, in life and in
  society, than it is to find God's call and also
  meaningful, creative ways to infuse one's faith
  in the diverse fields and activities of life
• Augustine taught grammar and rhetoric in
  Thagaste, Carthage, Rome, then Milan (385)
• In Milan he met Ambrose, the city's bishop. From
  him he learned about the allegorical
  interpretation of the Bible and of life in general

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14.1 St. Ambrose and the allegorical
interpretation of the Bible

• The allegorical interpretation is based on the
  assumption that the Bible was directed by God to
  the Church in general, not just to a single group
  in a specific place, or to a community that lived
  during a certain time
• Everything in it has always meaning, and nothing
  is ever out of date or inapplicable to the
  present
• God is constantly speaking to his creatures
  through his book (and through reality (nature and
  history)
• The Christian has simply to uncover the hidden
  truth that is relevant for his/her own individual
  experience
• In the explanation of the Bible, Ambrose and the
  Fathers of the Church move constantly from the
  literal and historical interpretation of the text
  to a variety of allegorical interpretations

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14.1 St. Ambrose and the allegorical
interpretation of faith and life

• Both the Bible and human life are seen as having
  multiple layers of signification through the
  Bible and through all kinds of events God is
  communicating with each individual
• "In allegorical exegesis the sacred text is
  treated as a mere symbol, or allegory, of
  spiritual truths. The literal, historical sense,
  if it is regarded at all, plays a relatively
  minor role, and the aim of the exegete is to
  elicit the moral, theological or mystical meaning
  which each passage, indeed each verse and even
  each word, is presumed to contain" (J.N.D. Kelly)
• An example from the Old Testament the
  allegorical interpretation of the episode of
  Jonah in the belly of the whale does not take
  away from the reality of Jonah's experience, and
  yet at the same time that story is read also as a
  prophecy of Jesus' death and resurrection, the
  belly symbolizing the tomb in which his body
  rested for three days

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14.1 St. Augustine the conversion

• 386 after a friend's visit, St. Augustine goes
  into his garden. He hears a child's voice
  repeating "Tolle, lege" "Take up and read". He
  picks up St. Paul's epistles, and opens it at
  Rom. 13
• In line with the allegorical interpretation of
  reality, we have to assume that the child's voice
  is really that of the neighbor's son, and yet
  those words are also spoken to Augustine by God,
  indirectly, because nothing ever happens by
  chance
• Reality is in itself a book with multiple
  meanings, multiple levels of signification
  everything has a literal and a historical
  meaning, but also speaks of something else
• Of course this view is somewhat distant from our
  modern reasoning, and medieval literature, where
  allegory is present everywhere, can be difficult
  to read and easy to misunderstand or to
  oversimplify

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14.1 St. Augustine after the conversion

• St. Augustine's Confessions
• Contains autobiographical chapters, which
  constitute probably the first modern
  autobiography (as a history of the heart, not
  just a journal of material events)
• Easter of 387 he is baptized by Ambrose
• Back in Africa he becomes a priest, then the
  Bishop of Hippo

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14.1 Benozzo Gozzoli, San Gimignano (Tuscany)
"Take up and read" (1465)
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14.1 Benozzo Gozzoli, San Gimignano (Tuscany)
"The baptism of St. Augustine" (1464)
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14.2 Augustine on grace and salvation, on the
sack of Rome

• Often based on St. Paul's teachings
• Central is the idea that without the grace of God
  one cannot be saved
• Free will vs. predestination see the following
  article from the Catholic encyclopediahttp//www
  .newadvent.org/cathen/06259a.htm
• Even Martin Luther belonged to the Augustinian
  order
• De civitate Dei (413-26) on God and the Roman
  empire
• The City of God was written in the years
  following the sack of Rome by the Visigoths (410
  CE)
• St. Augustine decided to provide a systematic
  examination of Roman history
• He explains how God intervened in the development
  of the Roman Empire (under which Jesus was to be
  born)

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14.2 St. Augustine on God and the Roman Empire

• Romans were able, in his view, to maintain unity,
  peace and stability so that humankind would be
  ready to accept the gospel
• Augustine defends the Christian faith from the
  accusations of those who saw in the sack of Rome
  a sign of the weakness of the new God accepted by
  the Romans, a God who seemed unable or unwilling
  to protect the city and its inhabitants, in spite
  of the fact that the majority of them had
  converted to Christianity during the previous 100
  years
• Augustine's ideas on the relationship between
  Roman and Christian history, and the pages he
  devoted to praising the virtues of the Romans,
  especially those from the age of the Republic,
  ended up promoting the acceptance of Greco-Roman
  civilization in medieval society/culture

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14.2 How St. Augustine read the classics

• A passage that Prof. Donnell likes to quote
  often, shows how much Augustine believed in the
  fundamental harmony existing between Greco-Roman
  philosophy, specifically Platonism, and the
  Christian faith. It is a paragraph from the 7th
  book of the Confessions, in which Augustine
  explained how he found the words of the prologue
  to the gospel of St. John inside the book written
  by a disciple of Plato
• 7.9.13 Thou procuredst for mecertain books of
  the Platonists, translated from Greek into Latin.
  And therein I read, not indeed in the very words,
  but to the very same purpose, enforced by many
  and diverse reasons, that In the beginning was
  the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
  was God...

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14.2 How St. Augustine read the classics

• ...the Same was in the beginning with God all
  things were made by Him, and without Him was
  nothing made that which was made by Him is life,
  and the life was the light of men, and the light
  shineth in the darkness, and the darkness
  comprehended it not.
• And that the soul of man, though it bears witness
  to the light, yet itself is not that light but
  the Word of God, being God, is that true light
  that lighteth every man that cometh into the
  world.
• But, that He came unto His own, and His own
  received Him not but as many as received Him, to
  them gave He power to become the sons of God, as
  many as believed in His name this I read not
  there.
• http//www.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/augustine/Pu
  sey/book07

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14.2 Why Augustine read and valued the classics

• It is undeniable that many of the Scriptures in
  the New Testament clearly show the influence that
  Greek culture already had on some of the authors
  of those texts, namely St. John, the apostle Paul
  and, to a certain extent, Luke
• Paul and Luke certainly had studied in schools
  and with teachers that were familiar with
  principles of Greek philosophy as well as of
  classical rhetoric
• In the case of John, very little we know for sure
  about his education, but that he had read books
  written by the disciples or followers of Plato or
  even those written by Plato himself there is no
  doubt, and biblical studies have pointed out that
  he was also a master in the use of rhetorical
  devices such as irony

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14.2 Why Augustine read and valued the classics

• So it doesn't seem unreasonable that St.
  Augustine had recognized and that he valued the
  influence of classical philosophy on the
  Scriptures
• This discovery must have shown him the way to
  reconcile values and ideas of the Greeks and the
  Romans with the new Christian ideology, which was
  originally, by virtue of its roots, essentially
  different from anything ever conceived in Greek
  or Roman culture
• Finally we cannot overlook the fact that St.
  Augustine had been first a brilliant student and
  then for many years in teacher of rhetoric, one
  of the disciplines that really define classical
  culture

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14.3 St. Augustine metaphors that he popularized
and that are still popular among Christians

• Life itself is like a book, or a divine scripture
• everywhere we turn our eyes there are signs
• the world can be read as an endless allegory
• Life is a journey, or a pilgrimage
• the final destination (Heaven or Hell) is much
  more important than the single steps or the path
  taken to get there
• The city of God vs. the city of man
• 1) the ideal community of the saints and
  believers
• 2) the society of those overly concerned with
  earthly values, like the community created by
  Cain, the first biblical city, after he had
  killed his brother or the one founded by
  Romulus, another who had murdered a sibling
• heaven vs. earth spirit vs. body

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14.4 The 4 Latin doctors of the Church, in a
medieval manuscript Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome,
Gregory
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14.5 The Temporal Reward Which God Granted To The
Romans (from St. Augustine's The city of God,
5.15)

• With regard to those to whom God did not intend
  to give eternal life with His holy angels in His
  own celestial city..., if He had also withheld
  from them the terrestrial glory of that most
  excellent empire, a reward would not have been
  rendered to their good arts, -- that is, their
  virtues, -- by which they sought to attain so
  great glory
• Compare to the episode of Limbus in Dante's
  Inferno, in The Divine Comedy

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14.5 Examples of the extraordinary virtues of the
ancient Romans, from The city of God

• ...another Roman chief, Torquatus, slew his son,
  not because he fought against his country, but
  because, being challenged by an enemy, he through
  youthful impetuosity fought, though for his
  country, yet contrary to orders which his father
  had given as general
• and this he did, notwithstanding that his son was
  victorious, lest there should be more evil in the
  example of authority despised, than good in the
  glory of slaying an enemy
• if, I say, Torquatus acted thus, wherefore should
  they boast themselves, who, for the laws of a
  celestial country, despise all earthly good
  things, which are loved far less than sons?

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14.5 Examples of the virtues of the Romans Mucius

• If Mucius, in order that peace might be made with
  King Porsenna, who was pressing the Romans with a
  most grievous war, when he did not succeed in
  slaying Porsenna, but slew another by mistake for
  him, reached forth his right hand and laid it on
  a red-hot altar, ...so that Porsenna, terrified
  at his daring, and at the thought of a conspiracy
  of such as he, without any delay recalled all his
  warlike purposes, and made peace
• if, I say, Mucius did this, who shall speak of
  his meritorious claims to the kingdom of heaven,
  if for it he may have given to the flames not one
  hand, but even his whole body, and that not by
  his own spontaneous act, but because he was
  persecuted by another?

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14.5 Ferdinand Bol, Titus Manlius Torquatus
Beheading His Son (1661-63), Rijksmuseum
Amsterdam
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14.5 Rubens, Mucius Scaevola and Porsenna (1620,
Budapest)
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14.5 Giambattista Tiepolo, Mucius Scaevola
(1750-53), Würzburg
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14.5 The virtues of the Romans, from The city of
God

• These despised their own private affairs for the
  sake of the republic, and for its treasury
  resisted avarice, consulted for the good of their
  country with a spirit of freedom, addicted
  neither to crime nor to lust
• By all these acts they pressed forward to
  honors, power, and glory they were honored among
  almost all nations they imposed the laws of
  their empire upon many nations and at this day,
  both in literature and history, they are glorious
  among almost all nations
• There is no reason why they should complain
  against the justice of the supreme and true God,
  they have received their reward

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14.6 Christianity and Roman civilization

• The mission of the Roman empire in Dante's The
  Divine Comedy
• The Roman Republic in Dante's The Divine Comedy
• when Dante, the protagonist of the Comedy,
  reaches the center of the earth, where Satan is,
  he finds there the three worst sinners in human
  history while the first, Judas, is an obvious
  choice, the other two, Brutus and Cassius (who
  had conspired to kill Julius Caesar), can only be
  understood in the context of the deep
  appreciation of classical civilization by
  medieval intellectuals, appreciation which was
  shaped and fostered by scholars such as St.
  Augustine
• The preservation of Roman/Greek culture
• architecture and terminology duomo (dome),
  cathedral (ltthrone), basilica, curia, romanesque
• the use of Latin by the Church

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14.6 St. Augustine and medieval culture

• Augustine, with a few others, was instrumental in
  convincing the Christian community that
  Greco-Roman civilization, in its greatest
  manifestations, was largely compatible with
  Christian ideology
• Therefore Medieval society was based on the
  combination of the Roman heritage and Christian
  culture
• Original Greco-Roman elements found their ways in
  religious poems, such as those written by St.
  Francis of Assisi and by Dante
• Theology and classical philosophy
• the philosophical theories of Aristotle and Plato
  were often use to confirm and explain, or even to
  provide the foundation of Christian theology

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14.6 The Christian Church and Roman culture

• The Christian church borrowed ideas and practices
  from Roman culture
• from the Roman arts and architecture, the
  typology and the terminology for different kinds
  of Churches
• from the Roman government and administration, the
  attires of priests and bishops
• just consider some of the mosaics in Ravenna,
  http//www.hp.uab.edu/image_archive/ulj/uljc.html
  6th century CE
• in this image, http//www.hp.uab.edu/image_archive
  /ulj/mosaic51.jpg, priests are on your right and
  members of the court are on your left notice the
  many similarities

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14.7 Conclusions

• By suggesting that the success of the Roman
  Empire was part of God's plan, and that it was
  not by chance that Jesus was born under Roman
  authority, Augustine established the premise for
  the preservation of Greek and Roman culture in an
  integrally Christian society such as that of the
  Middle Ages
• It is true that classical culture was at times
  and in different places ignored or misunderstood
  during the Middle Ages, but it is a fact that,
  among other things, the Church itself invested
  valuable resources in the construction and the
  maintenance of libraries that included scores of
  classical texts

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14.7 Conclusions

• Medieval scholars and theologians may have at
  times attacked or rejected classical philosophers
  and pagan poets, but they seldom questioned their
  importance, a fact that seems almost natural now,
  but which was extraordinary in ancient times,
  considering how many civilizations have come and
  gone leaving so few traces (other than those
  rediscovered thanks to modern archeology)
• The fact that a poet like Dante, more than 800
  years after the fall of the Roman Empire, could
  give so much relevance in his Divine comedy to
  its culture and its representatives is a real
  paradox, one that Augustine is at least partially
  responsible for
• see for example the treatment of the Roman Empire
  in the sixth Canto of Paradise,
  http//www.italianstudies.org/comedy/Paradiso6.htm