Augustinian Tradition Research Articles

The French Leçons de Ténèbres and the Foundation of the Jansenist Music Criticism

Abstract The spread of the Leçons de ténèbres in the French capital and later in large provincial cities contributed to the evolution of musical practices and the listeners’ sensibilities and favored the incorporation of religious music into secular musical calendars. This explains why, from the end of the seventeenth century, the genre has been the focus of criticism from clerics and lay people of different persuasions, who denounced the contamination of the church by opera, using the conventional argument of antitheatricality. Initially focused on the Lessons, the criticism’s terms and arguments used against the Lessons became instrumental in the Jansenist’s critique of modern music throughout the eighteenth century, particularly to contest Jesuit musical patronage and Jesuits’ sensualist conception of music for religious services. While Jansenist criticism portrays an irreducible opposition between opponents and supporters of modern music, the latter being equated with the Jesuits, the article highlights the ambiguities of Jansenist positions. An analysis of these criticisms reveals a double reference to the Augustinian tradition, on the one hand concerning the opposition between musica luxuriantis and musica sapientis and, on the other, a moral reflection on musical pleasure’s legitimacy based on individual introspection. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the condemnation of all modern forms of religious music appeared to contradict the claim to a part of this Augustinian heritage.

Relations in Ramon Llull’s Trinitarian Ontology

After his conversion in 1263, and following a vision on Mount Randa in 1273, Ramon Llull adopted a trinitarian view of the world. At the same time, he found his purpose in missionary activity, seeking to convert Christians, Muslims, and Jews to the Catholic faith. He also wanted to serve this purpose through his books. The trinitarian ontology that these books presuppose can be seen in his understanding of relations. Llull’s trinitarianism begins with the Augustinian tradition’s trinitarian understanding of the world. The basis of his trinitarian ontology lies in his understanding of correlatives, one of his most original contributions to the thought. Together with relative principles and the doctrine of God’s Dignities as absolute principles, these form the basis of his doctrine of Art, the art of combining elements. Trinitarian ontology also appears in his analysis of human’s relationship with God, in his dynamic definition of human being, and in the structure of the composition of human being. This article will show that trinitarian ontology is a presupposition of Ramon Llull’s vision of the world.

Kumlbúa þáttr, an Eschatological Event: The Traumatic Ontology of Being in Time in Medieval Iceland

<i>Kumlbúa þáttr</i>, an Eschatological Event: The Traumatic Ontology of Being in Time in Medieval Iceland

The Wanderer and the Legacy of Pathetic Fallacy

The Old English poem known as The Wanderer has long been said to rely on the device of ‘pathetic fallacy’ in its descriptions of stormy and frozen land- and seascapes. This piece of literary-critical terminology has strong ties to both Romantic and realist aesthetic ideals of the nineteenth century, and this paper outlines the assumptions which underpin the term and questions our continued use of it when discussing The Wanderer. By pointing us towards the external world as a projection of the interior psychological world of the ‘wanderer’ figure, the term obscures two key features of the text. Firstly, the label sweeps to the side the literal significance of the material world to which the poem’s central speaker responds, despite the fact that this landscape bears marks of divine anger and potency and seems to participate in the Augustinian tradition of the degraded Sixth Age of the World. Secondly, the term points us towards a dramatic characterisation of a single heroic-age nobleman in a manner that the text is itself relatively uninterested in pursuing, instead emphasising conditions of exile, isolation, and despair as universalised spiritual problems. Seeing this poem as governed by pathetic fallacy distracts us from such facets, when other interpretive frameworks have more to offer.

Glorifying God: The Theological Notion of Women in Christine de Pizan's Livre de la Cité des Dames

In the lives of holy women that constitute Part III of the Livre de la Cité des Dames (1405), Christine de Pizan (1365-c.1431) interpreted 1 Corinthians 11.1-15 and composed a theological anthropological notion of the human person that affirms that women and men alike are made in the image of God and the glory of God. In this passage of his letter to the Christian community in Corinth, the Apostle Paul taught on theological anthropology and ethics. Christine placed herself within the Augustinian tradition of scriptural interpretation and read the Pauline verses allegorically. Christine reordered and rewrote the lives of women saints in order to make the case for women as glorifying God, meaning both being the glory of God (i.e., representing God) and praising God. In the context of medieval intertextuality, Christine's descriptions of hair, head-coverings, and fathers each add to the author's biblical interpretation and theological argumentation. Christine's argument for women as created in the image of God and the glory of God is both about the basic relationships in the order of creation (Creator and created human being and human being and human being) and the capacities of human beings for intellect, virtue, and apostolic work in the world including teaching. Her exegetical and theological argument is inseparably anthropological, ecclesiological, and political.

The Canticle of the Creatures as Hypotext behind Dante’s Pater Noster

The article analyses Dante’s explanatory paraphrase and exegesis of the Lord’s Prayer, which opens the eleventh canto (v. 1–24) of Purgatory. The author reminds us that the prayer is the only one fully recited in the entire Comedy and this devotional practice is in line with the Franciscan prescription to recite it in the sixth hour of the Divine Office when Christ died on the cross. The prayer is reported by the poet on the first terrace of Purgatory, where the proud and vainglorious must learn the virtue of humility, and therefore it symbolizes the perfect reciprocity between man and Godhead. Dante collates and amplifies the two complementary Latin versions of the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6: 9–13 and Luke 11: 2–4. The two synoptic texts are supplemented by the Gospel of John, from which Dante takes the concept of celestial bread (manna) – the flesh and the blood of Christ – which nourishes, liberates and sanctifies Christians. Apart from the Bible, Dante also draws upon the Augustinian and Tomistic traditions. However, the main hypotext behind the prayer, which is neither cited nor acknowledged in any explicit form in the Comedy, is the Franciscan Laudes creaturarum (“Canticle of the Creatures”), also known as the Canticle of the Brother Sun. Written in vernacular by St. Francis himself, who is also the author of the Expositio in Pater noster, the Canticle was still recited and sung together with the Lord’s Prayer in the Franciscan communities in Dante’s time. Moreover, following the parallel readings popular nowadays in Dante studies, the author argues that Purgatorio 11 may be elucidated in the context of Paradiso 11, which is the Franciscan canto par excellence, and taken together they both offset cantos 10, 11, 12 of Inferno, which are based on the sin of pride (superbia). The denunciation of pride in and around canto 11 of Inferno alludes to humility – the remedy of such pride in Purgatory 11, which in turn prepares the reader for the encounter with St. Francis – the paragon of humility – in Paradiso 11. The author concludes that the Dantean paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer is no less than an elaborate exegesis and homage to Christ and His teachings, something which is encompassed in a nutshell in the Sermon on the Mount.&#x0D;

Questioning Bonaventure's Augustinianism?: On the Noetic Effects of Sin

AbstractRecent scholarship suggests that Bonaventure breaks with the Augustinian tradition, in part, by affirming that the mind's cognitive powers remain fully activated even after the fall. I suggest that this claim concerning Bonaventure's denial of the noetic effects of sin should be reconsidered. I provide evidence to show that Bonaventure did, indeed, affirm that the intellect was heavily damaged by the fall and that Bonaventure affirmed two at first seemingly paradoxical propositions: (1) the intellect is indeed damaged by the fall, and (2) that God remains the first thing known by the intellect. It is precisely Bonaventure's coupling of these two seemingly paradoxical propositions that have led some to underplay Bonaventure's affirmation of the noetic effects of sin. In other words, Bonaventure's model opens up the possibility of affirming that the results of the noetic effects of sin consists not in ignorance of God simpliciter, but in a paradoxical state of knowing-yet-not-knowing God, akin to Paul's account of Romans 1.

John Freccero (1931–2021)

John Freccero (1931–2021) Danielle Callegari John Freccero, Professor Emeritus of Italian and Comparative Literature at New York University, died on November 22, 2021 in Santa Cruz, California in the company of his family. He was ninety years old. He was predeceased by his wife Diane; he is survived by his first wife Yvonne, his children Carla, Stephen, Francesca, and Paola, and his grandchildren Isabella, Daniela, and Elijah. He is remembered as one of the greatest Dante scholars of his or any generation and a brilliant, inspiring teacher. His many publications and accolades hardly manage to capture the sweeping influence he had on the academic world and especially on his students, many of whom went on to become beloved teachers and prominent scholars themselves. Freccero was born on July 25, 1931 in New York City. His upbringing in an Italian-American family in Manhattan shaped him deeply even as he followed a trajectory very different from that of his immigrant parents, eventually receiving an academic scholarship to attend Johns Hopkins University, where he completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees. After pausing to serve in the military, he went on to pursue a Ph.D. from the same institution supported by the G.I. bill, and completed his dissertation in 1958 guided by the renowned Dantista Charles Singleton. His graduate and postdoctoral studies in Florence put him into contact with the important schools of philological and literary thought in the Italian and especially Florentine context, establishing his relationship with that city and the poet it had exiled. He recalled escaping to the hills of Florence during the flood of 1966 with his family in tow, and became a recognizable feature of Piazza Santo Spirito when he later regularly led the graduate program at New York University’s seat in Florence. [End Page 217] His first major essay, “Dante's Firm Foot and the Journey without a Guide” (The Harvard Theological Review, 1959), unraveled a long-contested crux in Dante studies and anchored Freccero as a dominant new voice in the field. It was later incorporated with his other contributions on Dante into a monograph edited by his student Rachel Jacoff, Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, published by Harvard in 1986. Emphasizing the Augustinian framework that undergirds the Commedia and introducing theoretical constructs that had rarely if ever been applied to the poet, The Poetics of Conversion became essential reading not only for all students of Dante but also for any student of critical literary studies. Freccero had an uncanny ability to comment on large-scale phenomena through close reading, a talent that also came through in his work on subjects other than Dante. That his essays on John Donne, Italo Svevo, and Michelangelo Antonioni remain points of reference for students of those authors marks him as a rare example of a scholar whose work might be better defined as a practice unto itself rather than an exercise of a given methodology. In addition to his critically acclaimed Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, his published works include the edited anthology Dante: A Collection of Critical Essays (Prentice Hall, 1965), and a second collection of essays, In Dante’s Wake: Reading from Medieval to Modern in the Augustinian Tradition (Fordham University Press, 2015), co-edited by Danielle Callegari and Melissa Swain. He composed the introductions for a number of notable American translations of Dante’s work, among them John Ciardi’s 1970 translation of Dante’s Paradiso and US poet laureate Robert Pinsky’s 1994 popular translation of Inferno. These publications are a reflection of how active he was in the field, as are the numerous awards and honors he received, beginning with two Fulbright fellowships for postdoctoral work, followed by a Guggenheim fellowship. The Dante Society of America bestowed him with a lifetime achievement award, and in 2015 he was among the elite group of scholars elected into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in the category of Humanities and the Arts. Importantly, his awards reflect his far-reaching influence, not only in the US but also in Italy, where he was honored with the Fiorino d’Oro from the city of Florence and the Premio Presidente della Repubblica for...

Original Sin according to John Duns Scotus

Original Sin according to John Duns Scotus Ernesto Dezza OFM (bio) This article is intended to offer a textual and evaluative presentation of the theory of original sin as elaborated by the Franciscan master John Duns Scotus († 1308), the “Subtle Doctor.” While there are many studies and articles about Scotus’ ethics, few are devoted to what is considered the root of evil human behavior, and hardly any analyze the text of the Subtle Doctor in any sufficient depth.1 Perhaps because this topic belongs more strictly to theology, it is seldom considered in depth by philosophers. On the other hand, since Catholic theology after Vatican II has virtually narrowed its treatment of medieval topics and figures to all but Thomas Aquinas, it is rare to find any theologians interested in other medieval theories of original sin. Yet, the way Duns Scotus presents the doctrine of original sin, namely, by showing the limitations of the Augustinian tradition, offers interesting contributions to the debate on this topic which is far from resolved in contemporary theology.2 Furthermore, philosophers interested in Scotus’ [End Page 111] thought would do well to analyze his theory on original sin, since the way he considers the human being is always predominantly theological. Studying anthropology or ethics in the Middle Ages without examining its theological scope is limited and one-sided. Before all considerations are examined, it is important to clarify the terms used in this topic. According to the Bible, our first parents participated in a sin of disobedience to God (see Gen. 3), which is called “the Fall” (casus) or “Adam’s sin” (peccatum Adae) by medieval theologians. When using the expression ‘original sin’ (peccatum originale), medieval theologians signified the consequences of Adam’s sin, that is, Adam’s sin in us.3 Catholic theology after the Council of Trent uses the expression peccatum originale originans to denote the sin of Adam, because it is the cause of the origin of our own sinful condition, and the expression peccatum originale originatum to denote the effect of that sin in us, thus showing a strong correlation between cause and effect. Nevertheless, I will follow the usage of medieval theologians and avoid the last two expressions. So, in the following paragraphs we will see, in a step-by-step manner, Scotus’ exposition on original sin as read in his first classroom teaching on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, the Lectura.4 1. Presentation of the Problem The topic is presented by Scotus in four questions throughout distinctions 30–32 of the second book of his commentary on the Sentences, which constitute a unique little treatise about original sin.5 In the first question, Scotus asks whether everyone who is naturally descended from Adam contracts original sin. There are five arguments [End Page 112] against this: two from Augustine, one from Julian of Eclanum, one from Aristotle, and the last one derived from reason.6 The core of these arguments is that sin presupposes a personal responsibility and that human nature cannot be considered guilty in itself because of an action performed by Adam. On the other hand, we know from Scripture that “through one person sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned” (Romans 5:12). The second question is whether original sin is formally a lack of original justice.7 Four arguments8 arise against this explanation, because it does not seem that original sin and original justice must be considered as simply contrary to each other: e.g. an evil angel did not have original justice, yet he has not contracted original sin.9 Furthermore, while original sin seems related to some corporeal transmission in generation, justice belongs to the will, and the will is completely separable from the body (voluntas non est organica).10 In the argument to the contrary, however, it seems that original sin is nothing but a lack of original justice, because that sin is not an act of concupiscence (which belongs naturally to the sensitive power),11 yet is a mortal sin because it keeps us out of communion with God. It is not a type of ignorance, because babies are just...

Христианство в Средиземье: Августин и Дж.Р.Р. Толкин

The article is devoted to the analysis of motives and ideas in the epics of J.R.R. Tolkien, which he borrows from the texts of Augustine and from the texts of the Augustinian tradition. Main thesis of the paper is that the theological as­pects of Tolkien’s “Middle-earthic” works are close to the ideas that Augustine asserts in his writings. Tolkien’s and Augustine’s opinions are similar on many central Christian issues, such as the problem of the relationship between free will and grace, the problem of the relationship between good and evil, the problem of the Fall and the problem of sin. For example, for Augustine, as for Tolkien, the fall is a consequence of the free will of an intelligent being who wants to take a higher place in the Hierarchy of Creation. This desire is called “pride” by both Augustine and Tolkien; for them pride is the mother of all subsequent vices. Both Augustine and Tolkien call the creatures that have taken possession of vice “evil”, but evil itself in the writings of Augustine, as in the writings of Tolkien, is not an essence. Evil “parasitizes” on the created, which is originally good, and destroys it. Evil for Tolkien and Augustine is non-being, the denial of being. These individual aspects form the basis of the worldview systems of Augustine and Tolkien; therefore, they are given a special place in our article.

Экклесиологический проект прот. Георгия Флоровского в контексте августинианской традиции

Экклесиологический проект прот. Георгия Флоровского в контексте августинианской традиции

Ecumene of the Logos: Theoretical Affinities Between Italian and Russian Ontologism

The topic of this article is the convergence of the fundamental theoretical intuitions of two independent currents of Christian philosophy at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Italian Catholic spiritualism and the internally diversified current of the Russian religious philosophical Renaissance proved to be convergent in their ontological realism based on the metaphysics of cognition. This consonance undermines the stereotype about the total difference between the Russian Orthodox and the Western Catholic mentality. The article tries to show that these two denominations both drew inspiration from the Patristic heritage and that, contrary to all appearances, Russian religious philosophy owes much to the Augustinian tradition. The paper reminds the discovery of this convergence made by Vladimir Ern, and discusses certain elements of the teachings of Vladimir Solovyev and Evgenii Troubetzkoy in comparison with the basic philosophical intuitions of the Italian philosopher Antonio Rosmini.

The Myth of Pelagianism. By Ali Bonner

The suspicion that Pelagianism owes more to Augustine than its supposed originator is not new. In his own lifetime Pelagius was supported by influential patrons, defended by respected churchmen, and acquitted by a pope. On the other side of the binary, even Augustine’s own friends struggled with his obsession with the heresy he had drenched with his own words. Notwithstanding the reservations of his critics, an Augustinian triangulation of sin, grace, and salvation would become constitutive of Western Christian culture, making alternatives almost unthinkable—until the twentieth century began to think differently. The Myth of Pelagianism mounts an impressive attack on this Augustinian tradition and the historiography which is its offspring. Dr Bonner’s method is painstaking and her argument forcefully made. Its outline is simple: Pelagius did not teach the things he was said to have taught; he did not represent any kind of self-styled ‘movement’, and he repeated ideas long...

La correspondencia entre las partes del vestigio de la Trinidad y la tríada de Sap 11:21 en la obra de Juan Duns Escoto

El texto bíblico de Sap 11:21 tuvo una notable influencia en la historia de la filosofía medieval. Un ejemplo interesante de su importancia para la especulación teológica de la época se puede encontrar en la doctrina del vestigio de la Trinidad que Agustín elabora y configura en el sentido de una triple correspondencia entre Dios y la criatura. Esta doctrina se extenderá hasta los siglos XIII y XIV donde será central en el contexto del debate sobre el estado de las esencias creaturales, así como sobre el tema de la relación entre Dios y las criaturas. La teoría de Juan Duns Escoto será examinada en profundidad por su originalidad respecto de la tradición agustiniana y de las doctrinas de sus contemporáneos.

Theorizing the (Anglican) lex orandi: A Theological Account

AbstractThis article investigates the lex orandi, an under‐theorized yet central strand of Anglican theological identity. The aim is to provide some theological grounding to the ‘law of prayer’ and is motivated by the question: what, theologically speaking, does the lex orandi do? The first section explores the historical origins of the lex orandi in the Augustinian tradition and then its reception into mainstream Anglican theology. From there, the second section moves beyond Anglicanism by offering a codification of the various operations of the lex orandi, focusing in particular on its role in correcting, communicating and then complexifying Christian belief. The final section explores in further detail the nature of Christian belief as it is re‐routed through spiritual practice and takes, as a sort of test case, aspects of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo to display the ‘complexifying logic’ of the law of prayer.

The Danger of Romance: Truth, Fantasy, and Arthurian Fictions. Karen Sullivan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Pp. 299.

<i>The Danger of Romance: Truth, Fantasy, and Arthurian Fictions</i>. Karen Sullivan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Pp. 299.

Prayer after Augustine: A Study in the Development of the Latin Tradition by Jonathan Teubner

Reviewed by: Prayer after Augustine: A Study in the Development of the Latin Tradition by Jonathan Teubner Adam Ployd Jonathan Teubner Prayer after Augustine: A Study in the Development of the Latin Tradition Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018 Pp. viii + 257. $88.00. The word "after" in the title of Jonathan Teubner's Prayer after Augustine ought not to be read as meaning simply "subsequent to" or "chronologically following." Rather, it should evoke the more substantial sense of "in the footsteps of" or "in the manner of." Teubner's monograph on prayer in the Augustinian tradition is not so much about how the practice or theory of prayer developed in the centuries immediately following the death of Augustine—although he devotes careful work to unearthing the legacy of Augustine in the writings of Boethius and Benedict—as it is about the way theological tradition is transmitted and adapted, the "kinematics," as he puts it. From this multi-layered study emerges an astute rendering of Augustine's understanding of prayer, a new approach to the early Augustinian tradition independent of the perennial Pelagian focus, and a theory of tradition that challenges the reigning options in modern theological ethics. The historical meat of Teubner's study is divided into two parts, each with four chapters. Part I examines how Augustine's understanding of prayer develops diachronically in his writings. Chapter One, "Learning to Pray," examines Augustine's earliest works, especially the Soliloquia, De moribus, and De magistro. Through these texts Teubner traces the development of Augustine's understanding of prayer from a Platonic reaching of the ratio toward God to a reflexive turning inward upon oneself as unknown. In Chapter Two, "Prayer as Acceptance of Time," Teubner demonstrates how Augustine comes to reject a view of immediate ascent in favor of an eschatologically fulfilled ascent whose temporal delay cultivates a purified desire through a life of patience in time. This argument develops through readings of De vera religione and De sermone Domini in monte that highlight the practices of scripture reading and communal prayer that embody and enliven [End Page 152] this theory. Chapter Three, "Prayer as Reception of the Other," fleshes out this vision of purifying prayer by unpacking Augustine's understanding of the totus Christus. Highlighting Augustine's use of the verb induere, Teubner focuses on the Enarrationes in Psalmos, through which he illustrates how prayer is both the means for incorporation into the totus Christus and the fruit of such incorporation, as Christian existence becomes defined by a dialectic of desire and patience nurtured by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Part I concludes with Chapter Four, "Prayer as the Hope of Wisdom," in which Teubner comes to Ep. 130 and the De trinitate. His reading turns upon two terminological pairs—scientia/sapientia and deprecari/precari—which he reads as mutually informing. Deprecari represents the prayer for purification while precari signifies the desire for participation in God. Scientia pairs with deprecari inasmuch as it is linked with the humility of Christ's incarnation, the very humility that Christians must take on (induere) if they are to reach the sapientia for which they desire (precari). Thus, Teubner concludes his analysis of Augustine's approach to prayer by highlighting not only the tension of desire and patience but also the virtue of hope that sustains the Christian within that life-long tension that is the life of prayer. In Part II, Teubner traces the influence of this Augustinian approach to prayer within the writings of Boethius and the Rule of St. Benedict. Each figure receives two chapters, one for what Teubner terms "Augustinianism 1" and another for "Augustinianism 2," categories he describes in the introduction: "Augustinianism 1 refers to the citation, reference, and particular allusion to a writing from Augustine's pen. . . . Augustinianism 2 is the use of certain general orientations and constellations of thought from Augustine without necessarily sharing specific doctrinal positions" (15). In chapter 5, "The Augustinianism 1 of the Opuscula sacra," Teubner argues that "Boethius' very mode or practice of inquiry is influenced by Augustine's use of prayer in De trinitate and Ep. 130" (128). That is to say, following Augustine, Boethius emphasizes the nature of prayer...

San Nicolás de Tolentino by Lope de Vega

Reviewed by: San Nicolás de Tolentino by Lope de Vega Christina H. Lee Lope de Vega. San Nicolás de Tolentino. Edición de Roy Norton. edition reichenberger, 2016. 346 pp. roy norton has developed his university of oxford doctoral dissertation (2014) into an exemplary critical edition of Lope de Vega's San Nicolás de Tolentino, first published in 1641 in the Veinticuatro parte perfecta de las comedias del Fénix de España. Norton's text of the play, which is based on the princeps edition, is accompanied by a profuse number of footnotes in Spanish. These footnotes discuss Lope's references and allusions to biblical and theological subjects, early modern theatrical conventions, and sociocultural as well as historical contexts. They provide translations of Latin terms and phrases and explanations of early modern words and expressions that present-day readers might have difficulty understanding. For more seasoned scholars, Norton also includes in the footnotes the variants found between the princeps and the modern editions of 1894 (Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo), 1955 (Federico Carlos Sainz de Robles), 1965 (Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, updated), and 1984 (Jorge Puente Peña). Overall, Norton's edition makes the play accessible to less experienced readers of comedias who might appreciate a more guided introduction to the subgenre of the comedia de santos and compelling to more advanced scholars who might have not been aware of the merits of this lesser-known work. The volume is composed of two major sections: a lengthy and sustained examination of the play and the edited text. The main text is then followed by two appendices, a comprehensive list of variants (with some variants not indicated in the footnotes), and an "Índice de notas" of characters, sites, words, and works mentioned in the play and referenced in the footnotes. The study of the play is divided in six parts: a survey of the legends of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino (ca. 1246–1305), especiallyfromthe sixteenth century; an exploration of possible sources; an analysis of the protagonist, Nicolás, and his sidekick, Ruperto; a study of Lope's allegorical characters; a meticulous examination of the versification; and, finally, a carefully compiled bibliography. Saint Nicholas of Tolentino was the first Augustinian friar to be canonized. Born in Tolentino, Italy, he is still a favored saint for advocating on behalf of [End Page 351] the souls in purgatory. It is also believed that he established the Augustinian tradition of distributing bread rolls to the sick and the poor, known as Saint Nicholas's bread. The devotion to Saint Nicholas in Spain began in the fifteenth century in areas in which the Augustinian order had a strong presence. The saint has been long credited for the end of the plague that struck Cordoba between 1601 and 1602 and for extinguishing a fire in the town of Pontedeume in Galicia. Norton suggests that the play was most likely commissioned by Augustinian friars interested in honoring and promoting the devotion to their saint. Furthermore, Norton reminds us that the year of the play's composition (1614) coincides with Lope's spiritual awakening and his ordination as a priest. In terms of written sources, Norton agrees with José Aragüés Aldaz that if Lope relied on one hagiographic source, it was most likely Juan González de Critana's Vida y milagros del glorioso confesor San Nicolás de Tolentino (1612) ("Lope de Vega y la tradición hagiográfica sobre San Nicolás de Tolentino," Anuario Lope de Vega, vol. 17, 2011, pp. 1–43). Norton, however, did not take Aragüés Aldaz's conclusion as a given. Rather, he painstakingly examined each of the twenty-one possible sources before forming his own assessment. His findings are summarized in two tables. The first lists the sources in order of production (from 1325 to 1625) by author, title, and language (i.e., Latin, Castilian, Italian). The second presents the basic structural details also present in the hagiographies of Pietro da Monterubbiano (1326), Antoninus of Florence (1491), Alonso de Orozco (1551), the Augustinian friars of Burgos (1554), Gonzalo Millán (1572), Alonso de Villegas (1578), Jerónimo Román (1590), González de Critana (1612), Tom...

In Dante’s Wake: Reading from Medieval to Modern in the Augustinian Tradition

In Dante’s Wake: Reading from Medieval to Modern in the Augustinian Tradition

THE METAPHYSICS OF AUGUSTINE AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE CARTESIAN SCIENCE

The aim of this paper is to show to what extent Descartes can be situated within the Augustinian metaphysical tradition and to what extent he has departed from it. To this end, we will argue that Descartes has borrowed his main Meditations’ arguments from Augustine’s philosophy. However, in spite of all factual and textual evidence we will provide against the originality of Descartes’ metaphysical discussions, it will be stressed, on the other hand, that in borrowing not only the cogito argument, but also some general features of his philosophy from Augustine’s works, Descartes intends to frame a metaphysics which will be the ground on his new mechanistic physics. Having this in mind, we will hold that no claim can be put forward against the originality and far-reaching scope of Descartes’ philosophical intentions. Indeed, Descartes’ purpose is to build a new science under a metaphysics, even though this metaphysics is the Augustianian one.