[_City of God_] was certainly a -major- work. Did you really read
the whole thing?
BTW: I assume you 'cheated' and read it in translation;)
Yes, I read the whole thing. If I had had the Latin available, I
probably could have made partial sense of it, since I took Latin in
high school some years previous (how badly am I dating myself here?);
but an English translation is what I read.
For even though I never finished the whole work, I found it
not only 'edifying', but highly informative.
It did nothing to build the spirit or the heart.
But this is precisely what I find so surprising. How could this be so?
I found that the first book did MUCH to "build the spirit and the
heart". How could you miss it? How could you miss the spiritual
challenge of accepting all that happens as a gift from the right hand
of God? How could you miss that this is what the entire first and 2nd
books (at least) are about?
The whole thing was stuffy intellectualizing;
Then why -did- you read the whole thing?
Also, I would like to believe that this 'stuffiness' was the fault of
the translator. It IS hard to translate Augustine into English without
serious distortion, one of the major dangers is the distortion of
making him sound 'stuffy'. Especially since this book was written NOT
for the average reader even of his own time, but for the urbane
reader. So he -had- to make the concession of using a more erudite
style than in his sermons.
Since you did take high school Latin, in theory, you should be able to
understand how it is possible that the original Latin is not stuffy at
all, but the English translation is. After all: Latin has many ways to
keep many parts of the sentence closely coordinated with each
other. But English does not; so the sentence ends up diffuse and
confusing, as if written by a stuffy, bilious bureaucrat with a
perilous penchant for obstreporous obfuscation. Yet the Latin retains
its liveliness, despite the long sentences and complex structure.
Again, it is hard to translate this erudite style into English without
introducing the distortion of 'stuffiness'. But it IS distortion, it
was NOT in the original.
You can verify this by doing an experiment yourself: make sure you
know all the vocabulary of this chapter (XX:20), recognizing the
inflected forms, and then read the whole chapter aloud: you will find
this makes a HUGE difference. You might even find the extra commas the
editor has erroneously inserted at
http://www.augustinus.it/latino/cdd/index2.htm!
the stuffiness, combined with Augustine's sense of superiority (e.g.,
to the Neo- Platonists, with whose thought he contrasts his own,
though I sort of thought he was sort of a Neo-Platonist himself)
He has been often accused of that. But as SO often, if you give too
much credibilty to such accusations, then you fall prey to vicious
slanderers. Unfortunately, there are such people even among
'scholars' writing about Augustine.
The truth is that he was a Neo-Platonist in his youth; but he really
did outgrow that and replace it with Christianity and a Christian
philosophy. Yet he continued to use Neo-Platonist language, as did the
Cappadocian Fathers also. Do NOT confuse this with continuing to
adhere to Neo-Platonism!
In fact, I would not be too surprised to find that this fictitious
"sense of superiority" you claim to find is really something quite
different: perhaps an exasperation that others still cling to what he
set aside as childish self-deception. And there are yet more
possibilities. So why are you so quick to assume that your first poor
guess is correct?
as I was saying, stuffiness is the overall impression that I still
carry with me. To be sure, the book exercised the mind, but that's
not enough.
Well, I do realize there is some risk in EVER agreeing with you, but
yes, exercising the mind is not enough. But I do NOT agree with you
that the book DID only "excercise the mind". Again: how could you miss
the spiritual challenge? And yet again: if the book was so worthless,
(according to you), then why did you finish it?
I'm genuinely surprised you didn't finish it.
It is slow going...
I would have expected you to have read the entire work multiple times
in Latin.
I wish I had that much time on my hands!
Indeed, I thought you kept the Latin papyrus-back edition by your
bedside! :-)
It's easier to keep it bookmarked in my Web browser;)
[snip]
What about Psalm 90 (in Protestant versions), headed "A prayer of
Moses the man of God"? Seeing that Moses died centuries before David
was born, it's hardly likely that David would have written a prayer
*for* Moses.
What about it? You have missed the distinction between 'prayer' and
'psalm'. Did it really never occur to you? Augustine could have
interpreted this to mean that the -prayer- was written by Moses, but
re-arranged and re-worded as a -Psalm- by David.
After all, even in Augustine's time, they were aware of a distinction
in Scripture between poetry and prose; they just misunderstood what it
was, trying to apply Greco-Roman rules of versification to Hebrew
poetry.
So recapitulating: here the single-letter preposition 'L' would be,
just as I said, "yet some other relation". WHY is this so hard for you
to understand and accept? Is it because you are so -eager- to find
fault with the saint? Such an obsession with fault-finding is
unhealthy enough when applied against ordinary citizens; it is far,
far worse when applied against the saints.
[This idea] seems a bit anti-Semitic, suggesting as it does that
Israel, in all its centuries, was not capable of producing more
than one good hymn writer.
Don't you think you should learn more about the idea before you pass such
sweeping judgment on it?
Sweeping?
Yes.
Note my careful use of the words "seems", "a bit", "suggesting".
Hedging. It is not "careful use" at all. It takes a foul inclination
of the mind to see "anti-Semiticism" in this belief -- especially when
it was the common Jewish belief as well! No hedging can cover up such
a foul inclination.
But it is my gift and my curse to see these odd implications of
religious ideas and beliefs that people more deeply immersed in them
often miss.
And when, as often, you see what isn't even really there, it is
clearly your curse. Why you insist on inflicting yourself with this
curse is a mystery to me.
Considering that today's hymnals show a great many composers and
lyricists, and you can toss in a lot more when you add modern
"worship songs", it's realistically much more plausible to believe
that the Psalms are the work of multiple hands;
And this is the standard belief among Christians today. But why -are-
you so obsessed with this minor yet misunderstood point?
a belief which does not accord with real-world experience is suspect.
Beware: such 'suspicion' is all too often just an excuse for denying
faith. Your long history of posts in this NG has persuaded me that
such is exactly the case with you.
The more serious strangeness was Augustine's statement that at the
time of the "Rapture" (though he didn't use that word), since
everyone *must* be subjected to the penalty of death, those
Christians still alive at the time would all die momentarily and
immediately be resurrected.
I think you misread him. Where did you see this? And do you REALLY
think he was unaware of the passage you quoted? That is
preposterous.
I looked up the passage; having inherited (literally, alas) my late
mother's set of Great Books of the Western World,
A fascinating series, with an excellent selection of works; but the
selection of translations/editions is not always so good. In
particular, a good edition of Augustine will have MANY more footnotes
than GBWW ever does.
I looked over the chapter titles of likely portions of _City of God_
in the Augustine volume until I found the very passage.
That is the hard way to find it, but I am glad to see that you were
willing to put forth the work to find it.
Since it was toward the end (Book XX, Chapter 20), it's quite
possible that you never saw it since you didn't finish the book.
True. But I am still in a better position to interpret it than you,
since you read him with SUCH a jaundiced mindset! "Anti-Semitic"
indeed!
Clearly Augustine was not ignorant of the passages I quoted,
Which is why it was so presumptuous for you to write about him as if
he was ignorant of it. Yet this is precisely what you did. Only later
did you admit that he knew the passages. But even then you failed to
grasp the relevance of the Old Latin variants.
since he alluded to both in that chapter (though he quoted neither
fully), a detail which, after 18 years, had escaped my memory.
You include this detail of your own as if it were a good excuse for
your scurrilous attacks on the saint. It is not.
However, he did suggest exactly what I said.
First of all, it is reckless to confuse what he actually said with
what you think he 'suggested'. But more importantly, no he did no such
thing. There is nothing in this whole chapter about "everyone *must*
be subjected to the penalty of death", contrary to your claim.
This was evidently partially because of a VERY curious and
exceedingly significant difference in the text of I Cor. 15:51 which
The difference is indeed significant. All the more reason for you to
show more caution than you actually showed. Yet you have still missed
a vital point: even without that difference, there are enough other
passages where Paul says that all shall die. Why have you passed over
all of these in silence?
Why, you have even completely missed the significance of the textual
variants! There are several of them, that discussed by Augustine has
nothing to do with the issue of whether those 'raptured' die at all!
See below.
He cited the key phrase (which he himself admitted was different in
different manuscripts)
Remember, as I -hope- you realized: he did not have the Vulgate, nor
did he normally follow the Greek manuscript tradition. He followed the
Old Latin (a.k.a Vetus Latina), which is an impure representation of
the 'Western' text-type, often quite different from the Vulgate AND
from the 'received' text you mention.
This is an example of the important detail that SHOULD be in a
footnote to any English translation of Augustine. But I doubt it is in
GBWW.
as "We shall all rise" or "We shall all sleep" -- whereas that phrase
as we see it nowadays is "We shall *not* all sleep" [emphasis mine --
jjs].
Now one has to wonder when, where, and by whose action that "not"
crept into the Received Text or fell out of Augustine's copies, and
which of these alternatives is the case (and whether it's even
possible to find definitive answers to any of these questions); one
also must wonder (probably with equal fruitlessness) whether it was
merely a piece of extremely careless copying or a deliberate
modification.
The people who make a professional practice of concerning themselves
with precisely these issues are "New Testament Textual Critics". It is
amazing what they can do. Did you look at what they say about this?
Why not?
Augustine, however, does hand-wave a bit over the I Thess passage,
saying something to the effect that it's *plausible* to believe that
people die and are resurrected while being "caught up".
It is NOT 'hand-waving'. On the contrary: it is a -completely-
reasonable explanation of the apparent contradiction with not only the
Old Latin of 1 Cor 5:51, but with many other verses as well, e.g., 1
Cor 15:36, which also seem to imply that all must die.
You seem to have confused this issue with the separate yet related
issue of the textual variants. But Augustine HAS to use the text his
readers have, and that is the Old Latin. It is beyond petty to fault
him for not using the 'received' text.
So the textual issue he deals with is whether the verse reads "omnes
quidem resurgemus" or "omnes quidem dormiemus". But we cannot "rise
again" unless we have first "fallen asleep"; likewise, if we have
"fallen asleep", then we WILL "rise again". So 'resurgemus' is
completely interchangeable with 'dormiemus'.
It is important NOT to be distracted by your points about the
'received' text, and realize that this is exactly the difference
Augustine was explaining, that between 'resurgemus' and 'dormiemus',
NOT that between today's editions and the Old Latin.
So what he really say? Now it is time for you to exercise your rusty
high-school Latin, and read:
crediderimus in eodem raptu de mortalibus corporibus exituros et ad
eadem mox immortalia redituros
We will believe [or: we should believe] that in the same taking up,
they will exit their mortal bodies and then enter their immortal
[bodies].
Nothing here about dying, even if it is true that -usually- this
'exit' is 'death'. So you should have thought of the possibility that
the 'death' they experience (as mentioned a little earlier in "nec
illi per immortalitatem vivificabuntur, nisi, quamlibet paululum,
tamen ante moriantur") is not quite the same as the death the rest of
us face. In particular, there is neither fear nor pain associated with
it; it is the nearly immediate transition from mortal, corruptible
body to immortal and incorruptible.
How is this different from any other belief in the 'rapture'? Modern
adherents too, must believe in this transition. The only difference is
that they don't usually -call- it 'death'.
After all, the passage doesn't say that this does *not* happen. In
other words, he doesn't rigorously prove his idea, but he did
convince himself.
Wrong again. He convinced many more than you realize, NOT just
'himself'. Even more important, why do you think that "rigorous proof"
is even appropriate for a book like this? And what DO you think a
"rigorous proof" in this field of inquiry looks like in the first
place? This isn't mathematics, you know.
----
[I've read a fair amount of 16th Cent work, as well as some from the
period from Nicea to Chalcedon. I find that there are significant
differences in the way writers worked in different periods. It makes
early writers pretty uniformly offputting. But I don't think we want
to reject all writing from other time periods because they use a
different style. That would be an unfortunate narrowing of our inputs.
--clh]