De Genesi Research Articles

Концепт saeculum в трактатах блаженного Августина Аврелия «Об истинной религии» и «О Книге Бытия буквально»

This article offers a contextual study of the concept of saeculum in the treatises of St. Aurelius Augustine «De vera religione» and «De Genesi ad litteram». Based on the analysis of the use of the noun saeculum in the treatises, the author comes to the conclusion that, although all the basic provisions have already been set out in the treatise «De vera religione», in the treatise «De Genesi ad litteram» they receive significant deepening and development, some new ideas related to this concept appear. These new meanings in the theoretical theological and philosophical basis of the treatises of St. Augustine include the fact that the polysemantic term saeculum — “age”, “world”, can have both a purely temporal meaning of a “temporal era”, and can be contrasted with the reality of human existence with the Divine, in sense of the biblical meaning of “this world”.

The Emergence and Implication of the Role of Angels in Augustine’s Understanding of Creation: The Extension and Mirroring of Christ

Angels take on a unique role in Augustine’s understanding of creation. Traditionally, researchers have focused on De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim, Confessiones, and De Civitate Dei contra paganos to generate a descriptive account of the angelic role in creation. As such, not much attention has been paid to the emergence of his understanding of angels in his earlier texts. The largely descriptive accounts have also left the theological implication, specifically the linkage between Augustine’s angelology and Christology, unaddressed. This paper offers a two-fold contribution. First, this paper argues that the often-overlooked text De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber represents the pivotal moment in the development of Augustine’s germinating thoughts on angels and creation. Augustine’s mature notions of angels as created light and created wisdom, as well as angelic noetic movement, find their roots in De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber. Second, this paper argues that, from De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber to his more mature works, angels extend Christ’s work in creation. Augustine solves the problem of fashioning the corporeal from the spiritual by locating the production of intellectual prototypes within angels. Together with the designation of angels as “knowledge”, “light”, and “wisdom”, angels mirror Christ’s activity as creator.

‘Mira profunditas eloquiorum tuorum’: Agustín intérprete de los primeros versículos del Génesis en las ‘Confessiones’ y en el ‘De Genesi ad litteram’

The paper provides a thorough and extensive analysis of the interpretations of Gen. 1:1-2b formulated and discussed in the Confessiones (Book XII) and in the De Genesi ad litteram (Book I). The investigation aims at bringing out both the logic underlying Augustine’s argumentation and its conformity with the hermeneutic pluralism programmatically theorized in these two works.

Augustine of Hippo: Advocate of Scriptural Metaphor

This article investigates Augustine’s evolving views on metaphor in his commentaries on the creation narrative. He contends that certain metaphysical truths, including God and his creation, are ineffable and can only be understood metaphorically. Therefore, he thinks that metaphors are crucial in the interpretation of the Scriptures, and he spends a great deal of effort explaining this to his readers. In his early work De Genesi contra Manichaeos, he adheres to the classical view, in which metaphors have a fixed meaning that can easily be rendered using a literal expression. This is a useful method to refute the Manichean claims, but it stands at odds with the idea that the things that these metaphors describe are beyond words. Later, in De Genesi ad Litteram, he comes up with a novel approach to metaphor. Here, he leaves a great deal of interpretational freedom to the reader. He points out that certain expressions are metaphors, and that individual expressions are part of a larger metaphorical concept, without restricting their meaning. Augustine’s approach shares similarities with the modern metaphor theories laid out by Max Black, as well as by George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, which may not have been as innovative as once thought.

Ecología en el ‘De Genesi ad litteram libri XII’

The article deals with Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram. A brief presentation of the work, its chronology and contents is made, to later consider the ecological elements of the Work. First of all, the text of Wis 11:21 is approached, to emphasize that all creation has been the work of the Trinity, which acts in everything with a measure, a number and a weight. A brief presentation is made of the exegesis of Wis 11:21 in other works of St. Augustine, particularly De Genesi aduersus manicheos and the second book of De libero arbitrio. Subsequently, a reflection is made on the differences among the living beings that St. Augustine establishes within De Genesi ad litteram, in order to emphasize the superiority of the human being over creatures, as image and likeness of God, as well as the impossibility of the transmigration of the soul from a human being to an animal, or vice versa. The importance of the command given by God to man to cultivate and take care of the garden of Eden is emphasized, stressing the ecological elements of this command, as well as its ecological implications. The article shows how creation has a “sacramental” character, since the perfection, beauty and order of the Creator are embodied in all his creatures, as an invitation to discover the Creator through his creatures. The ideas presented in De Genesi ad litteram are also linked to other Augustinian works, especially the first commentaries on the Book of Genesis and some of Augustine’s early works.

Ecology in De Genesi ad litteram libri XII

The De Genesi ad litteram constitutes one of the mature works of Augustine, and in spite of the fact that for many years it has remained forgotten, it deserves a place of honor among what are considered to be the great Augustinian works. The present article highlights creation as the work of the Trinity, Augustine’s interpretation of the text of Wis 11:22 in Book IV of De Genesi ad litteram, the relationship between the spiritual sense of Scripture and ecology, the fact that animals are simply creatures, the characteristics of animals that Augustine exemplifies with the fish of Bulla Reggia, the relationship between animals and the four elements, the question of spontaneous generation, the relationship that animals have with the ordo of creation, the mystery of life, the presentation of the seminal reasons or eternal reasons, the superiority of man over other creatures, the mission of the human being to care for and cultivate the world created by God.

Un ladrón como maestro para los creyentes

This article attempts to give an answer from the Augustinian perspective to the question of ecological sustainability, starting from the admiration of Saint Augustine for creation, and taking as reference points, first of all, Saint Augustine’s ideas on property. private and his own monastic ideal, as these are expressed in the Praeceptum as well as in sermons 355 and 356. The second source for the sustainability is the one concerning the relationship that the human being should have with all the created things, taking as point of departure Augustine’s De Genesi aduersus manicheos, where the human being is presented as an administrator of God’s goods and not as an owner who can abuse of them.

Augustine’s Utilization of Rhetorical Economy in His Early Theology of Creation (On Genesis against the Manichaeans 1.21.32)

Abstract While the majority of previous scholarship on Augustine’s theology has treated his references to rhetorical concepts as incidental, Robert Dodaro (2004), Michael Cameron (2010), Mark Clavier (2014) and Adam Ployd (2017), have recognized recently that Augustine incorporated sundry aspects of rhetorical theory into his theology in a consequential manner. In this article I advance this new scholarly movement in two ways. First, I show that Augustine also used rhetorical theory in a consequential manner in his early theology of creation; I argue that Augustine utilized the rhetorical concept of economy (oeconomia) as the logic justifying God’s declaration that the completed creation was “very good” (Gen 1.31) by means of a close reading of De Genesi aduersus Manichaeos 1.21.32. Secondly, I combine my findings in this article with previous research to contend that future scholarship on Augustine’s theology should treat his references to rhetorical concepts as potentially consequential.

La ecología en el De Genesi contra manicheos y el De Genesi ad litteram opus inperfectum de san Agustín

The article deals with Augustine’s idea about Creation and Ecology in the first two commentaries that the Bishop of Hippo wrote, namely, De Genesi contra manicheos and De Genesi ad litteram opus inperfectum. The article stresses that in those Works, St. Augustine underlines that the triune God is the creator of all things. The article also stresses God’s omnipotence, the Creation ex/de nihilo, and also the ecological ideas that Augustine presents in those commentaries, such as the Philocalia as a path to discover the Beauty of God in his works; the Order of the Creation in which all creatures are necessary and are interconnected between them; the Creation as a House in which God as the paterfamilias takes care of all things; the human being as the one who has to take charge of Creation in the Name of God, and how all Creation is directed towards God.

De Genesi Aduersus Manicheos

This article examines Augustine’s early anthropology, particularly through De Genesi aduersus Manichaeos. The most thorough treatment of this topic is found in the enduring work of Robert J. O’Connell, SJ. O’Connell argues that Augustine drew directly from the Enneads in De Genesi aduersus Manichaeos to formulate his anthropology. This article evaluates and critiques the evidence and implications of O’Connell’s position concerning Augustine’s articulation of the “fall of the soul.” I argue that an attentive text-based reading of De Genesi aduersus Manichaeos reveals the shortcomings of O’Connell’s “Plotinian” rendering of Augustine’s anthropology. More importantly, I show that De Genesi aduersus Manichaeos illuminates dimensions of Augustine’s anthropology often overlooked. These include the human’s transformation to spiritalis through Christ and the eschatological configuration of the caeleste corpus. In contrast to O’Connell’s theory, which emphasizes the necessary “circularity” of Augustine’s anthropological framework (that is, the soul “returns” to a condition identical to the aboriginal state), I argue that in De Genesi aduersus Manichaeos Augustine advances an anthropology that is not merely “circular.”

Ama et labora

In Laborem exercens, Pope St. John Paul II proposes some fundamental “Elements for a Spirituality of Work.” In thinking about the future development of a theologically robust “Spirituality of Work,” this paper explores Augustine’s theology of labor. It frames its examination by setting forth the philosophical evaluation of labor contemporary to Augustine. It then appraises the different facets of Augustine’s teaching on labor in De opere monachorum. Finally, it looks to his De Genesi ad literam for a more developed account of labor, which is grounded (ultimately) in the very being of God, who himself labors in his creation.

L’âme à l’état de béatitude connait-elle Dieu dans le corps ou hors du corps ? La réponse d’Augustin dans le livre XII du De Genesi ad litteram

This article highlights the relevance of Augustine’s exegesis of 2 Cor. 12, 2-4 in book XII of De Genesi ad litteram, for the development of his theory on the participation of the body in the beatific vision. Our analysis is developed in three moments : the state of Augustine’s theory on the participa-tion of the body in the vision of God at the beginning of the year 413 (Sermo 277); the absence of a biblical text on the topic as an obstacle to affirm the participation of the body in the beatific vision; the overcoming of this obstacle through the exegesis of Paul’s narration of his ecstasy (2 Cor. 12, 2-4) and the deduction of the necessity for the human body to participate in the vision of God in patria

El Cusano y la primera filosofía moderna de la creación

When we consider the Dialogus de Genesi, we find that Cusa's thought on the relationship between God and the world is distinctively non-medieval. Cusa considers God as the sole and absolute substance; and, as such, as being unknowable. God cannot be determined within any category that we know of. The world has some identity with God as manifestation or phenomenon.

Recent Books

The Annotated Book in the Early Middle Ages: Practices of Reading and Writing. Ed. By Mariken Teeuwen and Irene van Renswoude. (Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy, 38.) Turnhout: Brepols. 2018. xii + 783 pp. €140. isbn 978 2 503 56948 2. A collection of essays exploring annotation and scholarly practice in early medieval manuscripts. Includes: Mariken Teeuwen, ‘Voices from the Edge: Annotating Books in the Carolingian Period’; Evina Steinová, ‘Technical Signs in Early Medieval Manuscripts Copied in Irish Minuscule’; Giorgia Vocino, ‘A Peregrinus’s Vade Mecum: MS Bern 363 and the “Circle of Sedulius Scottus”’; Warren Pezé, ‘The Making of the De praedestinatione of Ratramnus of Corbie (Including the Identification of a New Personal Manuscript)’; Giacomo Vignodelli, ‘The Making of a Tenth-Century Self-Commentary: The Glosses to Atto of Vercelli's Perpendiculum and their Sources’; Franck Cinato, ‘The Earliest Anonymous Exposition of Priscian: Two Manuscripts and their Glosses’; Markus Schiegg, ‘Source Marks in Scholia: Evidence from an Early Medieval Gospel Manuscript’; Martin Hellamann, ‘Tironische Tituli: Die Verwendung stenographischer Marginalien zur inhaltlichen Erschließung von Texten des frühen Mittelalters’; Andreas Nievergelt, ‘Glossen aus einem einzigen Buchstaben’; Justin Stover, ‘Space as Paratext: Scribal Practice in the Medieval Edition of Ammianus Marcellinus’; Erik Kwakkel, ‘The Margin as Editorial Space: Upgrading Dioscorides alphabeticus in Eleventh-Century Monte Cassino’; Alberto Cevolini, ‘Making notae for Scholarly Retrieval: A Franciscan Case Study’; Sinéad O’Sullivan, ‘Reading and the Lemma in Early Medieval Textual Culture’; Silvia Ottaviano, ‘Reading between the Lines of Virgil's Early Medieval Manuscripts’; Anna Grotans, ‘Notker Labeo's Translation / Commentaries: Changing Form and Function over Time’; Ad Van Els, ‘Transmitting Knowledge by Text and Illustration: The Case of MS Leiden, UB, VLO 15’; Micol Long, ‘Monastic Practices of Shared Reading as Means of Learning’; Paulina Taraskin, ‘Reading Horace alongside Other Classics: MS British Library, Harley 2724’; Irene van Renswoude, ‘The Censor's Rod: Textual Criticism, Judgment, and Canon Formation in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages’; Luciana Cuppo, ‘Text and Context: The Annotations in MS Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare XXII (20)’; Janneke Raaijmakers, ‘Studying Jerome in a Carolingian Monastery’; Pierre Chambert-Protat, ‘Deux témoins d’Ambroise sur le Psaume 118 et leur ancêtre’; Jesse Keshiaho, ‘The Annotation of Patristic Texts as Curatorial Activity? The Case of Marginalia to Augustine's De Genesi ad litteram in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages’; Cinzia Grifoni, ‘Reading the Catholic Epistles: Glossing Practices in Early Medieval Wissembourg’; Patrizia Carmassi, ‘Theological Issues and Traces of Controversies in Manuscripts Transmitting Works of the Church Fathers’; David Ganz, ‘Epilogue. The Search for Glossed Clauses: An Autobiographical Account of a Corbie Study’.

Biblista F. E. Gigot (1859-1920), Augustin z Hippo a evoluční vznik člověka

This paper is part of a larger scholar project focused on Catholic theologians and scholars between 1871 and 1910 who accepted the evolutionary origin of the human body in accordance with the so called Mivart theory, or rejected it. The author presents the life and writings of the French theologian and biblical scholar F. E. Gigot, who was active mainly in the USA. He then analysed the relevant parts of the first section of his special introduction to the Old Testament (1901), where he interprets the first and second chapter of the book of Genesis and demonstrates a more or less open attitude to the theory of the evolutionary origin of man. The name of this biblical scholar, internationally recognized in his day, is not recalled in contemporary literature in connection with the reception of the evolutionary origin of humankind in Catholic theology at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. The discoveries help to correct the rooted conviction that the Catholic theologians of this period had an exclusively negative attitude towards the fact of evolution and the evolutionary origin of the human body. The study also includes an analysis of one passage of Augustine’s writing De Genesi ad litteram, where the author finds formulations which look like an offered hand across the ages to those who in 1871−1910, and also later, sought to theologically adopt the theory of the evolutionary origin – creation of man.

Agustín sobre la metafísica de la creación y los milagros

This essay explores Augustine philosophical conception of miracles in the context of a longstanding debate on the status of miracles expressed primarily in the De Genesi ad Litteram and De Trinitate. Over a half century ago P. D. Vooght remarked that Augustine “had opened up some profound and subtle views on the problem of miracles.” Dissatisfied with De Vooght’s conclusions, John Mourant and Leopold Tanganagba subsequently offered interpretations of their own on Augustine’s conception of miracles. Because Augustine’s conception of miracles is complex, unsystematic, and open to further consideration, it deserves additional scrutiny as no satisfactory answer has yet been found. I begin the essay by briefly examining the significance of Augustine’s definition of a miracle in De utiltate credendi. This definition functions as a starting point for an exploration of the doctrine of seminal reasons and its relation to divine and natural causality. The difficulty of understanding Augustine’s philosophy of miracles against this background calis to mind four possible interpretations of miracles found in De Vooght’s article. These interpretations in turn provide the focal point for providing a new assessment of Augustine’s philosophy of miracles in the final section of the essay.

The Creation of Eve

Why was Eve created? In De Genesi ad litteram, Augustine notoriously gives the answer that it was only causa pariendi, “for the sake of childbearing.” Other late antique interpreters of Genesis emphasize the purpose of conjugal union and domesticity. But a fuller reading of Augustine’s thoughts on the subject reveals the moment between the creation of Eve and the fall as pregnant with extraordinary possibility. This moment, of indeterminate length—for humans had not yet fallen into time—provides an opportunity for Augustine to unleash his theological imagination. This lecture is about paradise. It eschews the customary focus on Adam’s paradisal desire to think about Eve’s beginning. Augustine uses this beginning to emphasize the importance of sociality, and of marriage as its most perfect realization. He takes the quotidian miracle of childbirth as our closest intimation of God’s act of creation. And he imagines new meanings for the trinity of Villanova’s motto: ueritas, unitas, and caritas.

A proposito delle tre ipotesi sull’origine delle anime nel libro X delDe Genesi ad litteram(X, 1, 1 – 5, 8)

In book X of his De Genesi ad litteram, Augustine devotes extensive reflection to the origin of the souls of Eve and Adam’s successor, that, in its initial part, is viewed by most scholars as unclear and not linear. The article proposes an analysis of chapters 1-5 of book X, in which three hypotheses on the origin of the human souls are set out and discussed, in order to highlight the logic and demonstrate the consistency of Augustine’s argumentation.

Falsedad en las primeras obras de Agustín

In the second book of Soliloquia, Augustine queries: what is ‘true’ and what is ‘false’. Through the examination, Augustine (Ratio) expresses the idea that ‘true’ is that which exists. Therefore, whatever exists is true; nothing will be false. But then, what is ‘false’? This paper will first clarify that the examination of ‘false’ in Soliloquia relates to Augustine’s awareness of the problem of sin. Already in Soliloquia, Augustine finds that the soul can have in itself the cause of sin so as to be unable to have the truth. Secondly, the author examines how the epistemology of falsehood is developed in the early Augustine by examining his articles after Soliloquia, focusing on the concept of lying in De Genesi contra Manichaeos and De vera religione. This will show that Augustine's understanding of falsehood and lying is related to his soteriology. Thirdly, the paper focuses on q. 63 of De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII, in order to clarify what Augustine thinks about the relationship between God and human soul, where Augustine notes the significance of knowing and confessing sin as the means of cooperative salvation already described in his early works.

Augustine’s Early Theology of Image by Gerald P. Boersma

Reviewed by: Augustine’s Early Theology of Image by Gerald P. Boersma Evgenia Moiseeva Gerald P. Boersma Augustine’s Early Theology of Image Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016 Pp. 318. $72.99. The description of Christ as the image of God first appeared in Paul’s Epistles, but it was not until the fourth century that the theology of image attracted attention of great theologians of the time such as Augustine. Boersma’s book focuses on Augustine’s early theology of image based on the works written before 391, such as Contra Academicos (2.2.1–2.3; 3.5.11–6.13; 3.17.37–20.45), De soliloquia (especially 2.6.10–7.13), De Genesis contra Manichaeos, De diversis quaestionibus octaginta tribus (51.4 and 74), and De vera religione. Before turning his attention to Augustine, Boersma, in the first part of the book, provides a synthesis of what he calls the pro-Nicene theology of image, together with a short notice on Tertullian and Novatian. The most influential voices of the Latin theology of image (e.g. Hilary of Poitiers, Marius Victorinus, and Ambrose of Milan) are concerned with the meaning of Colossians 1.15 that calls Christ the image of God. The great difficulty they are facing is Genesis 1.26, which also names humanity an image of God. They seek to reconcile Christology with anthropology, but with little success. Assuming that the true image of God shares the properties of God, they all conclude (with nuances) that humanity is not an image of God, but made according to the image; or, as in the case of Ambrose, humanity is a created image, whereas Christ is a perfect and uncreated one. The second part of the book follows the development of Augustine’s concept on the basis of the pro-Nicene Christology on the one hand, and of the Plotinian philosophy of image on the other hand. It is the Plotinian philosophy with its concept of participation that helps Augustine surpass his predecessors. In Augustine’s works, imago appears as an equivocal term that may describe something wrongly imagined or dreamed, but can also refer to a representation revealing the truth. The revelatory character of image is well demonstrated on the example of Proteus (Contra Academicos and De ordine), whose capacity to embody and to reveal the truth makes him a philosophical representation of Christ. A tight connection to the truth is an essential characteristic of image for Augustine; the image is able to unveil the truth because it originates from the truth. Originating from the truth also means participating in it. Humanity as well as Christ participates in God, and in this sense they are both images of God. If Christ is an image of perfect equality, humans are unequal images. Boersma’s discussion of the role of participatio in Augustine’s early theology of image is interesting, but I wish it was more persuasive. As the author himself remarks, this term is virtually absent in the Cassiciacum dialogues. However, we do find participatio in De moribus Manichaeorum 2 (Quaestiones 23 and 24) in the context of the participation of Christ and humanity in God but without a reference to imago. The emphasis on De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus 51.4 in Boersma’s analysis is problematic, because all we know is that De diversis quaestionibus was composed between 386 and 396. If Boersma believes that Quaestio 51, 4 was written before 391, it would be helpful to provide support [End Page 333] for this dating. The first time we clearly see Augustine speak about humanity as imago Dei in terms of participatio is in De Genesi liber imperfectus 16, written around 393–394. A brilliant rhetor, Augustine is known for his attention to the word choice. I am not entirely persuaded by the author’s suggestion that Augustine had used the concept well before he started using the associated vocabulary. It would be desirable to trace the introduction of participatio in Augustine’s theology of image on the basis of a more thorough textual analysis. In summary, the book is a well-written, academic synthesis of Augustine’s early theology of image that...