C
Crumpy
Guest
The footnotes in “DEI VERBUM, The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation” issued by the Second Vatican Council, include six explicit references to writings of St. Augustine.
None of them, however, cite Augustine’s “Confessions.”
I came across St. Augustine’s “Confessions” at the public library (when I was looking for a commentary on Isaiah) and decided to take a detour into Augustine. He is a very educated man, having studied Plato (I take it) and generally the subject of rhetoric. Maybe we’d call that philosophy today. Note, the author of the book’s introduction notes that Augustine is not systematic, not organized in a modern sense; that’s certainly my impression from reading this complex work.
Confessions is supposedly the earliest recorded autobiography at least in Western literature. It was written in Latin, and there have been many translations into various languages. My library copy is a translation by J. G. Pilkington, published in 1963. I’m not otherwise familiar with this work, but this translation must be a work of art, itself. Augustine’s prose is very poetic in style, very metaphorical, very abstract.
This translation is so over-my-head that I skipped most of the middle, and decided to attempt the last three “books” of commentary on Genesis. What I’m leading up to is that our modern guidelines for reading scripture are very historic. While Augustine may have listed the essence of interpretation, I don’t think he invented it. So, our guidelines are very ancient.
Here he is
“These things, therefore, being heard and perceived according to my weakness of apprehension, which I confess unto Thee, O Lord, who knowest it, I see that two sorts of differences may arise when by signs anything is related, even by true reporters, – one concerning the truth of the things historical criticism, as I take it], the other concerning the meaning of him who reports them. For in one way we inquire, concerning the forming of the creature [Genesis] what is true; but in another, what Moses, that excellent servant of Thy faith, would have wished the reader and hearer should understand by these words.As for the first kind, let all those depart from me who imagine themselves to know as true what is false. And as for the other also, let all depart from me who imagine that Moses to have spoken things that are false. But let me be united in Thee, O Lord, with them, and in Thee delight myself with them that feed on Thy truth, in the breadth of Thy charity; and let us approach together the words of Thy book, and in them make search for Thy will, through the will of Thy servant by whose pen Thou hast dispensed them.”
Confessions of St. Augustine, Heritage Press, New York, 1963, p. 2462.
WOW. God is that author, but we have a human author in whose words we find God’s will. That’s VERY much like Benedict XVI’s recent Verbum Domini, for example, as well as Dei Verbum.
When we read scripture, we should be searching for God’s will. Exactly what Benedict has written recently.
This, by the way, is probably the only paragraph that I understood in the book. I see that other modern translations are available, and they are annotated at least with the scripture citations that Augustine uses. I’m sure that Augustine has been studied for centuries, up to the present day, and is deserving of the citations in Dei Verbum.
None of them, however, cite Augustine’s “Confessions.”
I came across St. Augustine’s “Confessions” at the public library (when I was looking for a commentary on Isaiah) and decided to take a detour into Augustine. He is a very educated man, having studied Plato (I take it) and generally the subject of rhetoric. Maybe we’d call that philosophy today. Note, the author of the book’s introduction notes that Augustine is not systematic, not organized in a modern sense; that’s certainly my impression from reading this complex work.
Confessions is supposedly the earliest recorded autobiography at least in Western literature. It was written in Latin, and there have been many translations into various languages. My library copy is a translation by J. G. Pilkington, published in 1963. I’m not otherwise familiar with this work, but this translation must be a work of art, itself. Augustine’s prose is very poetic in style, very metaphorical, very abstract.
This translation is so over-my-head that I skipped most of the middle, and decided to attempt the last three “books” of commentary on Genesis. What I’m leading up to is that our modern guidelines for reading scripture are very historic. While Augustine may have listed the essence of interpretation, I don’t think he invented it. So, our guidelines are very ancient.
Here he is
“These things, therefore, being heard and perceived according to my weakness of apprehension, which I confess unto Thee, O Lord, who knowest it, I see that two sorts of differences may arise when by signs anything is related, even by true reporters, – one concerning the truth of the things historical criticism, as I take it], the other concerning the meaning of him who reports them. For in one way we inquire, concerning the forming of the creature [Genesis] what is true; but in another, what Moses, that excellent servant of Thy faith, would have wished the reader and hearer should understand by these words.As for the first kind, let all those depart from me who imagine themselves to know as true what is false. And as for the other also, let all depart from me who imagine that Moses to have spoken things that are false. But let me be united in Thee, O Lord, with them, and in Thee delight myself with them that feed on Thy truth, in the breadth of Thy charity; and let us approach together the words of Thy book, and in them make search for Thy will, through the will of Thy servant by whose pen Thou hast dispensed them.”
Confessions of St. Augustine, Heritage Press, New York, 1963, p. 2462.
WOW. God is that author, but we have a human author in whose words we find God’s will. That’s VERY much like Benedict XVI’s recent Verbum Domini, for example, as well as Dei Verbum.
When we read scripture, we should be searching for God’s will. Exactly what Benedict has written recently.
This, by the way, is probably the only paragraph that I understood in the book. I see that other modern translations are available, and they are annotated at least with the scripture citations that Augustine uses. I’m sure that Augustine has been studied for centuries, up to the present day, and is deserving of the citations in Dei Verbum.
