Saint Augustine

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Dear Eastern Catholic brothers and sisters,

From what I understand, there is an ambivalence about St. Augustine within the Eastern Orthodox Church. This seems to stem from a confusion between the Latin Protestant understanding and the Latin Catholic understanding of the Saint. From your own experience, is this ambivalence present in the Eastern Catholic Church?

Dear Oriental Catholic brothers and sisters,

What is your own Tradition’s understanding of St. Augustine. In my own Coptic Tradition, he is a great Saint, and there is no ambivalence about him. We accept his teachings the same way the Latin Catholic Church does - and we reject the Protestant interpretation of St. Augustine.

Blessings,
Marduk
 
mardukm said:
Dear Eastern Catholic brothers and sisters,

From what I understand, there is an ambivalence about St. Augustine within the Eastern Orthodox Church. This seems to stem from a confusion between the Latin Protestant understanding and the Latin Catholic understanding of the Saint. From your own experience, is this ambivalence present in the Eastern Catholic Church?

Dear Oriental Catholic brothers and sisters,

What is your own Tradition’s understanding of St. Augustine. In my own Coptic Tradition, he is a great Saint, and there is no ambivalence about him. We accept his teachings the same way the Latin Catholic Church does - and we reject the Protestant interpretation of St. Augustine.

Blessings,
Marduk
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St. Augustine is a great saint but there are some problems with some of his writings. He does have a strong emphasis on predestination.
 
mardukm said:
Dear Eastern Catholic brothers and sisters,

From what I understand, there is an ambivalence about St. Augustine within the Eastern Orthodox Church. This seems to stem from a confusion between the Latin Protestant understanding and the Latin Catholic understanding of the Saint.

Blessings,
Marduk
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It’s funny Calvinists are pretty positive about him (and the same goes with Lutherans). Here’s a discussion thread I had on another board just a week ago on this.

theologica.ning.com/forum/topics/high-church-and-augustinianism

In reading up on this topic a week or so ago, it seems like the anti-Augustinianism that (unofficially) happened with the EO was a reaction to the counsel of Florence.

(PS - Mardukm the “Gina” on the thread is my wife).
 
Dear brother Addai,

Thank you for the (name removed by moderator)ut! I read the link, and here are the salient points I picked up:
  1. There is a re-appreciation of St. Augustine within Eastern Orthodoxy.
  2. The EO criticism of St. Augustine is based on his teaching on (a) the Fall, (b) Predestination, (c) the simplicity of God.
I personally don’t understand the EO criticisms. I hope my Eastern brethren will explain.

(a) the Fall - there does not seem to be a united teaching on the Fall among the early Fathers. What is it about Augustine’s teaching that is criticized?

(b) Predestination - the Catholic understanding of Predestination is based on foreknowledge, not determinism (which is the Calvinistic misunderstanding). I hope some Augustinian students/scholars join in this discussion. Was St. Augustine’s understanding of predestination based on the idea of divine foreknowledge or divine determinism? Some quotes from the Saint would be great. The EO criticism seems to be based on the idea of determinism. But I don’t think the Saint espoused determinism. Is there some other aspect of the Augustinian teaching on the matter that EO’s criticize?

(c) the simplicity of God. Did St. Augustine understand that we participate in the divine, but that we do not actually become God? If so, what criticism could there be? Once, again I hope our Augustinian students/scholars join in the discussion.

Blessings,
Marduk
 
mardukm said:
Here is HH Pope Shenoute’s teaching on predestination via St. Augustine:

suscopts.org/messages/lectures/soterlecture5.pdf

Notice that it distinguishes the Calvinistic understanding.

Blessings
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That is a good explanation of St. Augustine’s view of predestination. There are problems with Augustine’s view mainly because he says that Christ did not die for all. He says that Christ only died for some. When it says in 2Tim that Christ came to save all Augustine interprets it as meaning ‘all kinds of men’. So there will be some Greeks, and some Jews, and some Africans, and etc. But the vast majority of men are not predestined.
 
Dear brother Jimmy,
jimmy said:
That is a good explanation of St. Augustine’s view of predestination. There are problems with Augustine’s view mainly because he says that Christ did not die for all. He says that Christ only died for some. When it says in 2Tim that Christ came to save all Augustine interprets it as meaning ‘all kinds of men’. So there will be some Greeks, and some Jews, and some Africans, and etc. But the vast majority of men are not predestined.
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That is not the Coptic and Catholic interpretation of Augustine. As HH’s exposition indicates, St. Augustine taught that not all are predestined for salvation due to divine foreknowledge of what men will do, not based on determinism (which is Calvin’s peculiar interpretation). If St. Augustine wrote that Christ only died for some it is only because Christ’s Sacrifice would not be efficacious for those who reject Him. St. Augustine did not deny that men had free will, and it is based only on this free will and God’s foreknowledge of men’s actions, that the Saint could say that Christ did not die for all. The whole idea must be based on the notion of God’s foreknowledge. Christ certainly INTENDED to die for all, for it is God’s will that all men be saved. I believe that mitigation of St. Augustine’s teaching that “Christ died only for some” is contained in his works.

Again, I am not an Augustinian scholar, and my own understanding of St. Augustine is based only on what I have been taught in my Coptic Tradition. I hope some of my Latin brethren will join to either validate or refute my understanding (with quotes from the Saint).

Blessings,
Marduk
 
There is a faction in Orthodoxy that blames St. Augustine for everything from acid rain to halitosis.

On the other hand, one Old Calendarist group commemorates him as St. Augustine the Great.

He was the most prolific and admired of the early Latin fathers, but very few of his works were translated into Greek–and it could be that even these were carelessly translated.

He became, because of the great corpus and antiquity of his writings, almost the universal solvent in the West; most of the old Breviary’s patristic lessons were from him. For the East he was one father among many.

As Fr. Seraphim Rose (an admirer of his, who himself is on the verge of being glorified) said, “He has some errors, but he also has much to teach the outwardly correct, but inwardly cold and unfeeling Christians of modern times. We reject where he taught imprecisely, but we embrace the man.”

Holy Father Augustine of Hippo, pray to God for us.
 
mardukm said:
I personally don’t understand the EO criticisms. I hope my Eastern brethren will explain.

(
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Well for one his teaching on original sin and predestination are contradictory to their ideas of Theosis and Theodicy. And I think it also contradicts the Eastern ideas of the ramifications of being created in the Divine Image (western Augustinians I’ve known will go so far as to say the Divine image after the fall was obliterated rather then simply obscured as the EO say).
 
mardukm said:
Dear brother Jimmy,

That is not the Coptic and Catholic interpretation of Augustine. As HH’s exposition indicates, St. Augustine taught that not all are predestined for salvation due to divine foreknowledge of what men will do, not based on determinism (which is Calvin’s peculiar interpretation). If St. Augustine wrote that Christ only died for some it is only because Christ’s Sacrifice would not be efficacious for those who reject Him. St. Augustine did not deny that men had free will, and it is based only on this free will and God’s foreknowledge of men’s actions, that the Saint could say that Christ did not die for all. The whole idea must be based on the notion of God’s foreknowledge. Christ certainly INTENDED to die for all, for it is God’s will that all men be saved. I believe that mitigation of St. Augustine’s teaching that “Christ died only for some” is contained in his works.

Again, I am not an Augustinian scholar, and my own understanding of St. Augustine is based only on what I have been taught in my Coptic Tradition. I hope some of my Latin brethren will join to either validate or refute my understanding (with quotes from the Saint).

Blessings,
Marduk
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My understanding of the article is that the view of predestination that HH Pope Shenouda was offering an explanation of the history of the Calvinist view and then he offered the Coptic perspective. I understood it as saying that St. Augustine said some good things about Grace but that there is a darker side that becomes clear after closer examination. He then shows the development of the idea of double predestination. He concludes by giving the Coptic perspective (which I think all traditional Churches are ok with including both the Greek and Latin Churches).

When it comes down to it, it is very difficult to understand exactly what St. Augustine’s view is exactly because some statements are very strong on free will but others are very strong on Grace and predestination. There is no final Latin Catholic perspective on predestination. There are some Latins who would say that God predestines based on His foreknowledge. This would include the Molinists. There are others who would say that God’s predestination is previous to His foreknowledge. There was a contravercy on this in the 17th century. It was left as an open issue.
 
Mardukm,

If you are not familiar with it already, a good book to read is The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church. In it, Fr. Seraphim Rose goes at great length to show that:
  1. Those Orthodox who reject Augustine are rejecting a Father of the Church, and are worldly-minded.
  2. Augustine deserves a special place in Orthodox theology.
  3. Augustine made some theological errors–but it was not heresy, and his saintly contemporaries (e.g. St. John Cassian, viewed as Semi-Pelagian by many Latin Catholics) did not correct him as though he were a heretic.
  4. The key error of Augustine is in “overstating” the role of grace in the Christian life and “understating” that of free will. But, as Fr. Seraphim notes, Augustine did not deny the role of free will in salvation.
  5. Augustine is named among the Holy Fathers in several of the Ecumenical Councils.
  6. Many well-known Orthodox saints of more recent centuries (e.g. St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain and St. John Maximovitch) regard Augustine as saint, and even have composed services in his honor.
 
I was talking with an Orthodox guy about St. Augustine once, and he saw no problem with Augustine. For him its just looking past the rhetorical devices of Augustine. Since he was writing against pelagianism he would of course focus a lot on the role of grace and predestination.
 
Augustine’s anti-Pelagian writings do take a very strong view of predestination. For example:
This is the changeless truth concerning predestination and grace. For what is it that the apostle says, “As He hath chosen us in Himself before the foundation of the world”? And assuredly, if this were said because God foreknew that they would believe, not because He Himself would make them believers, the Son is speaking against such a foreknowledge as that when He says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you;” when God should rather have foreknown this very thing, that they themselves would have chosen Him, so that they might deserve to be chosen by Him. Therefore they were elected before the foundation of the world with that predestination in which God foreknew what He Himself would do; but they were elected out of the world with that calling whereby God fulfilled that which He predestinated.
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A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints
ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf105.xxi.ii.xxxiv.html
 
As Magdalan has correctly stated, there is certainly veneration of St. Augustine amongst some Orthodox; a number of Western-Rite parishes have dedidcated their temples to him (St. Augustine in Denver comes to mind, as does the Pro-Cathedral parish for the Western Rite in Texas).

He is definitely held as a saint amongst especially the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox. St. Peter Mohyla included his works in his seminary programs in Kyiv. St. John Maximovitch actually composed a Service to St. Augustine during his life. Fr. Georges Florovsky taught St. Augustine as “an essential Father” during his teaching career in Paris. Archbishop +Mark of ROCOR also has spoken of the importance of St. Augustine in his Russian works. And, of course, there is the work of Seraphim Rose.

Certainly Fr. Lev Gillet, the famous “Monk of the Eastern Church” and a mainstay of the Paris emigre movement, never ceased to praise his value as one of the important Fathers.

St. Augustine is celebrated as a saint on the Orthodox calendar on June 15/28; that should settle most disputes questioning his orthodoxy. Last time I checked, alleged “heresiarchs” are not included in the Orthodox calendar of saints.

St. Nikodemus, well after the “schism”, added St. Augustine in the Synaxarion printed on the Holy Mountain, and a version of this text was also later added to the Synaxaria printed in Kyiv and Moscow/Sergeiv Posad.

Fr. Myroslav Tataryn, a priest of the UGCC, also wrote an excellent article about this subject several years ago in Studies in Eastern European Thought.
 
Diak said:
As Magdalan has correctly stated, there is certainly veneration of St. Augustine amongst some Orthodox; a number of Western-Rite parishes have dedidcated their temples to him (St. Augustine in Denver comes to mind, as does the Pro-Cathedral parish for the Western Rite in Texas).

He is definitely held as a saint amongst especially the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox. St. Peter Mohyla included his works in his seminary programs in Kyiv. St. John Maximovitch actually composed a Service to St. Augustine during his life. Fr. Georges Florovsky taught St. Augustine as “an essential Father” during his teaching career in Paris. Archbishop +Mark of ROCOR also has spoken of the importance of St. Augustine in his Russian works. And, of course, there is the work of Seraphim Rose.

Certainly Fr. Lev Gillet, the famous “Monk of the Eastern Church” and a mainstay of the Paris emigre movement, never ceased to praise his value as one of the important Fathers.

St. Augustine is celebrated as a saint on the Orthodox calendar on June 15/28; that should settle most disputes questioning his orthodoxy. Last time I checked, alleged “heresiarchs” are not included in the Orthodox calendar of saints.

St. Nikodemus, well after the “schism”, added St. Augustine in the Synaxarion printed on the Holy Mountain, and a version of this text was also later added to the Synaxaria printed in Kyiv and Moscow/Sergeiv Posad.

Fr. Myroslav Tataryn, a priest of the UGCC, also wrote an excellent article about this subject several years ago in Studies in Eastern European Thought.
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Wow, that’s a lot of info! :cool:
 
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