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The Journal of Religion
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Self, Soliloquy, and Spiritual Exercises in
Augustine and Some Later Authors*
Brian Stock / University of Toronto
i
Augustine is one of the recognized architects of Western thinking about
the self.1 He is not the earliest student of the subject in the ancient
world. That distinction belongs to Socrates, who talks briefly about the
self and self-knowledge in a well-known passage of the Alcibiades.2 The
self is an infrequent topic in philosophy down to late antiquity, when a
number of figures from different schools take up the theme. Among
the Stoics these include Seneca, Plutarch, and Epictetus; among the
Neoplatonists, Plotinus and Porphyry, who provide Augustine with the
starting point for many of his reflections on selfhood.3 In the Judeo-
Christian tradition the psalms, gospels, and letters of Paul contain pro-
found but scattered insights into the self. In the Confessions, Augustine
becomes the first Christian author to bring these insights together in
order to complement and at times to supersede what he has learned
about the self from his readings in philosophy.4
By way of introduction I would like to draw attention to three features
of Augustines wide-ranging conception of the self to which I will return
later.5 First of all, Augustine is concerned with proving that the self
exists against the argument of the Skeptics that its existence is subject
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The Journal of Religion
6
This is the case despite recognized differences in their approach to the subject. The texts
to which I refer for these quotations are, respectively, Augustine, De civitate Dei 11.26, and
Descartes, Discours de la methode, pt. 4. The seminal article on the connection between Au-
gustine and Descartes on this theme remains Genevie`ve Rodis-Lewis, Augustinisme et car-
tesianisme, in Augustinus Magister, vol. 2 (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1954), 10871104;
for a list of parallels, see Zbigniew Janowski, Index Augustino-Cartesien: Textes et commentaire
(Paris: Vrin, 2000), 20106.
7
Compare Augustine, Confessiones 1.8.13: ego ipse mente, quam dedisti mihi, deus meus,
cum gemitibus et uocibus uariis et uariis membrorum motibus edere uellem sensa cordis mei,
ut uoluntati pareretur nec ualerem quae uolebam omnia nec quibus uolebam omnibus. The
connection between self, language, and intentions is made clear by the origin of the desire,
which is ego ipse (Augustines pronominal way of designating the self) and by the link between
the heart (sensa cordis mei) and will or desire (uoluntati, uolebam); cf. De Trinitate 15.11.20,
where the analogy is between the Word of God and Gods image implanted in the mind, as
the source of the self.
8
Augustine, Confessiones 10.8.14; Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 186.
9
Augustine, Confessiones 10.16.25.
10
Augustine, Soliloquia 2.1.1; cf., Retractationes 1.4.1. Augustine uses only the plural.
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Self, Soliloquy, and Spiritual Exercises
11
Augustine, Soliloquia 2.8.14.
12
Augustine, De Trinitate 15.10.1715.11.21.
13
See Pierre Hadot, Spiritual Exercises, in Philosophy as a Way of Life, trans. Michael Chase,
ed. and intro. Arnold I. Davidson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), pt. 2.
14
See Augustine, De musica 1.3.41.4.6.
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The Journal of Religion
ii
I have been discussing just one concept of the self in antiquity, namely,
the view of Plato, in which the self is looked upon as an image in the
mind or soul.17 As transformed and deepened by Plotinus, this became
the most important philosophical influence on the formation of Au-
gustines notion of the self.
I would now like to say a few words about the role of Christian thinking
in the generation of Augustines ideas on the subject, which is oriented
in a different direction from that of Platonic (or other pagan) philos-
ophy. This consists in conceiving the self in an autonomous or inde-
pendent fashion.18
Let me begin this section with a reminder that Christian writers are
generally more concerned with the self than ancient philosophers. The
philosophers incorporate what they want to say about the self into what
they say about the soul, as does Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics. Chris-
tian thinkers typically recognize that there are problems concerning the
self that have to be taken up on their own terms rather than being
connected with those of the mind or soul. These have to do with the
selfs theological setting and arise chiefly from the interpretation of
Christs crucifixion and resurrection. For, according to the canonical
gospels, it was not the Lords soul that was put on the cross but his
living, historical personhis embodied self, one might saywhich had
15
See Plato, Alcibiades 129ab, trans. (with emendations) D. S. Hutchinson, in Plato, Complete
Works, ed. John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett,
1997), 587, 589.
16
Plato, Alcibiades 132d.
17
See Augustine, Soliloquia 2.6.11, where a classification of such images is found.
18
Owing to the influence of Jacob Burckhardt, the literature on the emergence of the
autonomous self, as distinct from the soul, is chiefly associated with the period after Petrarch;
for a recent review of the issues and an original approach to Petrarchs writings on the subject,
see Gur Zak, Petrarchs Humanism and the Care of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2010), 153.
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Self, Soliloquy, and Spiritual Exercises
been sent to earth to dwell for a time among mortals. It was the same
incorporated self that reappeared before Mary Magdalene three days
after his execution.19 The telltale detail in this episode is the empty
tomb. Had it been Christs soul alone that went upward, his embodied
self might well have remained behind.
Later Christian thinking on the embodied self owes a great deal to
the letters of St. Paul,20 whose reflections on flesh and spirit were much
studied by Augustine in the years in which his conception of the self
was taking shape. Augustines major statements on the subject are found
in mature works such as the Confessions, De civitate Dei, and books 815
of De Trinitate. But there are hints of an interest in a Christian inter-
pretation of the self in his earlier writings, even though these works are
chiefly concerned with other philosophical questions. How else can we
interpret the conclusion to De beata vita, written in the winter of 386
87, where he states that lasting happiness, which is the reiterated goal
of ancient philosophy, demands above all the acceptance of Christs
divinity?21 Also, in book three of the Confessions, which recalls his state
of mind even further back in time (at age nineteen), he notes that it
was the absence of the mention of Christ that dampened his enthusiasm
for Ciceros Hortensius, the work that converted him to the search for
wisdom and happiness through philosophy. There he states that any
book which lacked this name, however well written or polished or true,
could not entirely grip me.22
We do not have to look far in the gospels for the sort of statement
that the young Augustine found valuable in his reflections on these
themes. One such locus classicus is the collection of sayings involving the
self found at Matt. 16:24-28, Mark 8:34-39, and Luke 9:23-27. In the
version in Mark, Jesus addresses his disciples (and others present) with
these words: Anyone who wishes to be a follower of mine must leave
self behind; he must take up his cross, and come with me. Whoever
cares for his own safety is lost; but if a man will let himself be lost for
my sake and for the Gospel, that man is safe. What does a man gain by
winning the whole world at the cost of his true self [ten psychen autou]?
What can he give to buy that self back?23
19
Matt. 28:9; John 20:1118.
20
For example, Romans 1215, where Paul admonishes his brethren to offer their very
selves to Christ with mind and heart (Rom. 12:1). The gifts of Gods grace outlined in
the statement that follows are framed within the notion of a Christian spiritual exercise for
which there were philosophical as well as biblical precedents.
21
Augustine, De beata vita 4.34, citing John 14:6.
22
Augustine, Confessiones 3.4.8, trans. Chadwick, 39-40.
23
Mark 8:3438 (The New English Bible: New Testament [Oxford: Oxford University Press and
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961], 70).
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The Journal of Religion
24
Vincent Taylor, The Gospel according to St. Mark (London: Macmillan, 1952), 381.
25
Compare Mark 4:10, where both are mentioned.
26
However, see Mark 8:34, 9:38, 10:21, etc.
10
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Self, Soliloquy, and Spiritual Exercises
which the gospel passage emphasizes, and it has essentially three com-
ponents. The first is self-denial (aparnesastho heauton). Jesus does not
ask his followers to give up material things or to adopt an ascetic lifestyle,
although these are mentioned elsewhere, but literally to surrender the
self, to disown it. This is a more radical reshaping of self than is implied
in the spiritual exercises of which Socrates and later philosophers
speak. Second, the person who desires to become Jesuss follower must,
so to speak, take up his cross. Since this implies crucifixion, one can
consider the statement a figurative way of saying that a follower of Christ
must be prepared to lose his or her life, as indicated in the next verse
(apolesei ten psychen autou). The image of a humiliating death, usually
reserved for criminals, therefore reinforces the image of a willful or
voluntary sacrifice of ones self, which is implied in the Christian concept
of self-denial. Of course it is not an actual death that Jesus has in mind
here, but, as I have suggested, a kind of discipleship; nonetheless the
unwavering allegiance that he demands of his followers is envisaged as
leading, potentially at least, to torments or sufferings, if not to martyr-
dom. It is in that sense that we should understand the third component,
namely, the directive for the convert to follow Jesus (akoloutheito), as
mentioned in the opening phrase.
Augustine singled out the directives for self-reform in the gospels or
the letters of Paul for comment, especially in his sermons. He was aware
that it was a saying comparable to the ones I have quoted, namely, Matt.
19:21, which inspired the conversion of St. Antony, as related in the
second chapter of Athanasiuss Life; and it was the translation of the
Vita Antonii by Evagrius of Antioch, completed around 371, that played
a major part in the conversion of the bureaucrat Ponticianus at Confes-
siones 8.6.15 and in his own conversion at Confessiones 8.12.29. Let me
remind you of these literary connections as they are summed up in the
celebrated tolle, lege scene, where Augustine says:
Audieram enim de Antonio, quod ex euangelica lectione, cui forte super-
uenerat, admonitus fuerit, tamquam sibi diceretur quod legebatur: Vade, uende
omnia, quae habes, da pauperibus et habebis thesaurum in caelis; et ueni, sequere me.27
[For I had heard how Antony happened to be present at the gospel reading,
and took it as an admonition addressed to himself when the words were read:
Go, sell all you have, give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven;
and come, follow me.]28
27
Augustine, quoting Athanasius, Vita; Matt. 19:21.
28
Augustine, Confessiones 8.12.29, trans. Chadwick, 153.
11
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The Journal of Religion
29
Gal. 3:27; Col. 3:12; cf. 1 Thess. 5:8.
30
For example, De Trinitate 8.6.9, where we find Augustines favorite examples of these two
types of memory images, that is, Carthage, which he has seen, and Alexandria, which he has
not seen.
12
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Self, Soliloquy, and Spiritual Exercises
iii
To summarize, I have suggested that there are two ways of looking at
the problem of the self in the ancient and late ancient periods. In the
one, discussions of the self are inseparable from those involving the
soul; in the other, the self is described independently of the soul, even
though the concept of the soul may lie in the background.
31
Pierre Courcelle, Recherches sur les Confessions de saint Augustin (Paris: E. de Boccard,
1955), 175202. The ensuing literature on the veracity of the garden scene is summarized
by H.-I. Marrou, La querelle autour du Tolle, lege, Revue dhistoire ecclesiastique 53 (1958);
4757. For a judicious review of the issues, see Henry Chadwick, History and Symbolism in
the Garden at Milan, in From Augustine to Eriugena: Essays in Neoplatonism and Christianity in
Honor of John OMeara, ed. F. X. Martin and J. A. Richmond (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 1991), 4255.
13
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The Journal of Religion
32
See Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine, trans. L. E. M. Lynch (New
York: Random House, 1960), 26971 nn. 13. For a full review of the subject, see Gerald J. P.
ODaly, Anima, animus, in Augustinus-Lexikon, ed. C. Mayer et al. (Basel: Schwabe, 1988),
vol. 1, fasc. 23, 31540.
14
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Self, Soliloquy, and Spiritual Exercises
33
Anselm, Epistula 77, trans. R. W. Southern, in Southern, Saint Anselm and His Biographer,
Birkbeck Lectures 1959 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 31.
34
On the trinity, see Monologion, chaps. 5664; on language, see chaps. 1011.
35
The role of these preliminary conversations is emphasized in the prologue to the Mon-
ologion as well as in the envisaged audience reaction to the work after it is written; see Anselm,
Monologion, Prol., in Sancti Anselmi Opera Omnia, ed. F. S. Schmitt, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Nelson,
1946), 78.
36
Ibid., 8: Quaecumque autem ibi dixi, sub persona secum sola cogitatione disputantis et
investigantis ea quae prius non animadvertisset, prolata sunt.
37
Ibid., 7.
38
Ibid., chap. 11, 26, line 5; cf. chap. 12, 26. Here the term refers to divine creation;
however, Anselm also uses the notion to describe humans inner speech; e.g., chaps. 29, 32.
15
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The Journal of Religion
39
Ibid., chap. 1, 14: ut aliquis sic secum tacitus dicat.
40
Ibid., chap. 1, 13: ut deinde ratione ducente et illo prosequente. In Anselm, irrelevancy
is rigorously excluded, whereas in Augustine digressions occur.
41
Anselm, Proslogion, Prooemium, in Schmitt, Opera, 1:93.
42
Anselm, Epistula 71, trans. Southern, in Southern, Saint Anselm, 31.
43
Anselm, Proslogion, Prooemium, trans. M. J. Charlesworth, in St. Anselms Proslogion, with
a Reply on Behalf of the Fool by Gaunilo and the Authors Reply to Gaunilo, trans. and intro. M. J.
Charlesworth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 103.
44
Compare Augustine, Soliloquia 1.1.26.
16
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Self, Soliloquy, and Spiritual Exercises
[Come now, insignificant mortal, leave behind your concerns for a little while,
and put aside for a short time your restless thoughts. Cast off your burdens and
cares; set aside your labor and toil. Just for a little while make room for God,
and rest a while in him. Enter into the chamber of your mind, shut out
everything but God and whatever helps you to seek him, and seek him behind
closed doors. . . . Come now, O Lord my God, teach my heart where and how
to seek you, where and how to find you. Lord, if you are not here, where shall
I seek you, since you are absent? But if you are everywhere, why do I not see
you, since you are present?]45
45
Anselm, Proslogion, chap. 1, in Schmitt, Opera, 97-98; translation from Anselm, Monologion
and Proslogion with the Replies of Gaunilo and Anselm, trans., with intro., Thomas Williams (In-
dianapolis: Hackett, 1995), 97 (slightly modified).
46
On this theme, see the classic study of Dom Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the
Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, trans. C. Misrahi (New York: Fordham University
Press, 1961).
17
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The Journal of Religion
47
Augustine, De magistro 1.1.2; my translation.
48
Augustine, Confessiones 11.27.3536.
49
Ibid., 10.1.110.2.2.
50
For a brief review, see Alberto Pincherle, Agostino, . . . , in Enciclopedia dantesca (Rome:
Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1970), 1:8082.
51
Dante, Inferno, canto 10, verses 2227, 7799.
52
Dante, Vita nuova, ed. Michele Barbi, 2nd ed. (Florence: Societa` Dantesca Italiana, 1960),
chap. 1, 3: In quella parte del libro de la mia memoria.
18
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Self, Soliloquy, and Spiritual Exercises
has known personally (or who lived within his lifetime) and people
whom he knows about through his reading (or occasionally through
Virgils or Beatrices instruction). The first category corresponds to what
Augustine calls phantasia, the second to phantasmatum, that is, respec-
tively to things known by sight and to things known by report.
In parallel with these two types of memories there are two levels of
ethical discussion in the Commedia, namely, the universal and local. The
overall framework for ethics is universalist and imposes a Christian
scheme of moral judgements based on the teachings of the Bible, the
church fathers, and selected scholastic thinkers, including Bonaventure
and Thomas Aquinas.53 In this respect, Dante reiterates and transforms
books one to ten of Augustines City of God, in which pagan and Christian
moralities are compared in order to illustrate the superiority of the
latter. By contrast, the dialogues on ethical issues between Dante and
the figures whom he meets on his journey through the Inferno and
Purgatorio are local, inasmuch as each episode deals with a different
fault, a separate person, and a specific social or political milieu. Here,
I would propose, the universalist program fades into the background,
although it does not by any means disappear, and we are confronted
with deeply moving dramatizations of human situations, some of them
having tragic consequences which could not have been foreseen by the
actors.
In sum, within Dantes soliloquy, which is the Commedia, we have two
levels of external dialogue, one which pertains to a large ethical picture
and another which pertains to a series of smaller ethical dramas. There
are some eighteen of these local dialogues in the Inferno and Purgatorio,
and I would like to mention in passing just two of them in order to
make my point about their mediating function in the poem. These are
the conversations that Dante has with Francesca da Rimini in canto 5
and with Guido da Montefeltro in canto 27. These figures are linked
by the mention in both cantos of the Polenta and Malatesta families.
The eagle of Polenta, mentioned in canto 27, is the father of Francesca
and ruler of Ravenna, where Dante took refuge in his last days. The
old and young mastiff of Verucchio in canto 27 represent the succes-
sive rulers of Rimini, the cruel father and half-brother of Gianciotto
and Paolo Malatesta, who are, respectively, husband and lover of Fran-
cesca in canto 5.
In neither of these cantos are we dealing with historical facts. In canto
5, Dante colors what he knows about the lovers murder with his own
53
For an enduring introduction to these themes, see Bruno Nardi, Dante e la cultura medievale,
2nd ed., ed. Paolo Mazzatini (1942; Rome: Laterza, 1990).
19
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The Journal of Religion
Francesca tells the story of their murder by Paolos brother when they
were caught embracing, after reading together an amorous passage of
the story of Lancelot. Dante tells her that their martyrdoms make him
weep with sadness and pity (verses 11718); then, while Paolo himself
weeps, he breaks down emotionally and falls to the earth, as if dead
(verses 14142). This is the end of the dialogue but it is not the solution
to the ethical dilemma which the story has raised: namely, whether two
people, whose emotions are aroused by a third force, deserve Dantes
(and the readers) pity, even though they stand guilty of willfully taking
the steps toward a sinful act.
There are also two sides to the story of Guido da Montefeltro, who
is the subject of a different type of internal conversation in Inferno, canto
27. Guido was an important personality in Dantes time,54 whom Gio-
vanni Villani called the cleverest and subtlest military figure in Italy.55
54
Dante, Convivio 4.28.3-8.
55
Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica 7.80; quoted by Natalino Sapegno in Dante Alighieri, La
divina commedia, vol. 1, Inferno, ed. Natalino Sapegno (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1966), 307
n. 63.
20
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Self, Soliloquy, and Spiritual Exercises
He was a lion in battle but his repeated intrigues earned him a second
title, namely, the fox.56 Among the treacheries to which Dante has
him confess in canto 27 is playing a part in the betrayal of the Colonna
family in the conquest of Palestrina by Boniface VIII, as well as in sup-
porting the abandonment of the crusade after the fall of Acre. Dante
did not invent these accusations, but they have to be weighed against
Guidos documented achievements.57 These include his victory over the
Guelfs in Romagna between 1274 and 1282 and in Pisa in 1292, and
his reconciliation with the Church, following his excommunication, as
well as his entry into the Franciscan Order.
The ambivalent attitude of Dante toward Francesca and Guido is ech-
oed in other episodes of the Inferno involving his contemporaries: for
example, in his pity for the father of his poet friend, Cavalcante (Inferno,
canto 5), when he asks whether his son is alive; in his vindication of
Piero delle Vigne (canto 13), despite the condemnation of his ignoble
suicide; in his admiration for the scholarly attainments of Brunetto Lat-
ini (canto 15), which have been tainted by the accusation of sodomy;
and in his sympathetic portrait of Ugolino (canto 33), which mitigates
his sin of hatred. In these examples the external dialogue presents al-
ternatives without finally and definitively choosing between them, and
these are incorporated into Dantes soliloquy. What he has in mind is
a limitation of the human condition, which is summed up eloquently
by Farinata in canto 10, when he says:
Noi veggiam, come quei c ha mala luce,
le cose disse che en son lontano;
cotanto ancor ne splende il sommo duce, . . .
(Verses 100103)
[We see like those with poor vision, he said,
the things that are far away from us,
to the degree the supreme lord yet gives us the light. . . . ]
56
Dante, Inferno, canto 10, v. 75.
57
Inferno, ed. Sapegno, 308 n. 63.
21
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The Journal of Religion
In the final lines of the canto Dante emphasizes the inability of speech
to convey what he saw in this transforming vision, or, one might be
tempted to say, this conversion:
O quanto e` corto il dire e come fioco
al mio concetto!
(Verses 12122)
[O how limited is speech and how faint
before my conception!]
58
Dante, Convivio, 3.4.9-11; cf., 4.15.15; Vita nuova 16.2, 23.46.
22
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Self, Soliloquy, and Spiritual Exercises
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