Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity

Revising a Classical Ideal

Paul R. Kolbet

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780268084752
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Philosophy

Augustine and the Cure of Souls situates Augustine within the ancient philosophical tradition of using words to order emotions. Paul Kolbet uncovers a profound continuity in Augustine's thought, from his earliest pre-baptismal writings to his final acts as bishop, revealing a man deeply indebted to the Roman past and yet distinctly Christian. Rather than supplanting his classical learning, Augustine's Christianity reinvigorated precisely those elements of Roman wisdom that he believed were slipping into decadence. In particular, Kolbet addresses the manner in which Augustine not only used classical rhetorical theory to express his theological vision, but also infused it with theological content.

This book offers a fresh reading of Augustine's writings—particularly his numerous, though often neglected, sermons—and provides an accessible point of entry into the great North African bishop's life and thought.

Part One

A Classical Ideal

Chapter One

Classical Therapy: Its Origins, Tasks, and Methods

The soul is cured by means of certain charms,

and these charms consist of beautiful words.

—Plato, Chrm. 157a

Psychagogy as a Cultural Ideal

On the 18th of September, 96 CE, the Roman emperor, Domitian, was stabbed to death. Since Domitian had no heir, the conspiracy resulted in the end of the Flavian dynasty and raised the perilous problem of succession. Indeed, as he executed senators and banished philosophers to undermine any opposition to his power, Domitian feared that such a thing would happen. He was known to say that “the lot of rulers was most unhappy since when they discovered a conspiracy, no one believed them unless they had been killed.”¹ Although the Roman senators greeted the news of his death with relief, the armies remained loyal to Domitian. He had cultivated this relationship by giving them a 25 percent pay increase—the first in nearly a century.² Due to recent conflicts in Dacia, many soldiers were stationed on the northern border across the Danube River. Domitian had personally led troops into that region ten years earlier.³ When the news arrived in an army camp, it sent the troops into turmoil. If the murder was to be avenged, it would be by someone from the ranks of the army.⁴ Amid the discord, a man in rags walked through them, ascended the high altar, stripped off his tattered clothing, and shouted, “Then the resourceful Odysseus stripped away his rags”—an echo of Homer’s account of Odysseus’ return from his long absence and expulsion of the suitors who had unjustly occupied his home.⁵

At this outburst, those present realized that the man was not actually a beggar, but the sophist Dio in the garb of a cynic philosopher announcing his own return. Exiled by Domitian, he had been banished both from Rome and from his homeland of Bythinia.⁶ He was known as a man who in exile combined the philosophy of Plato with the eloquence of Demosthenes.⁷ Dio, the enemy of the soldiers’ fallen leader, faced the army armed with nothing but words. He proceeded to deliver an oration against Domitian’s tyranny by invoking Roman traditions of governance and order. The early third-century historian Philostratus remarks that Dio’s “persuasiveness was indeed able to cast a spell (καταθϵ́λξαι) over even those not deeply versed in Greek letters.”⁸ Ultimately, Dio persuaded the soldiers to aspire to these higher traditions and quelled the mutiny as his speech (λογου̑) overcame the disorder (ἀταξίαν).⁹

This narration by Philostratus, far from being an isolated tale, exemplifies a widespread Hellenic cultural ideal that only gained force as it traveled through time into the Roman Hellenistic world. Amphitheaters across the Empire were commonly filled with spectators gathered to hear the discourse of rhetors. It was a culture that admired speech and made mastery of it central to its educational aspirations.¹⁰ Speeches were even a featured part of the Olympic games.¹¹ Orators were greatly admired who could visit a city and in an extemporaneous speech turn even the city’s greatest faults into attributes deserving of lavish praise. If the city had been destroyed three times, the orator argued that this fact actually enhanced the city on account of the greater availability of farmland. If the city was not located directly on the ocean, the orator extolled its insulation from threatening weather and the immorality of sailors. If the city had no claim to a single deity or native race as founders, the rhetor argued that immigration had, in fact, attracted the finest of everything to a single place.¹²

Audiences were entertained by the beguiling quality of such a speech as common perceptions were easily overturned before their very eyes. What they had previously thought to be of little value was rhetorically turned into that which they could not live without. Plutarch remarks that there were those who “not without a certain plausibility” could extol the virtues of such things as vomiting, fever, or a kitchen pot.¹³ Dio’s oration in praise of hair was so well regarded that Synesius, some three hundred years later, used the same techniques to speak in tribute of the virtues of baldness.¹⁴ Persuasive words could discredit a historical fact that had never been previously doubted. Dio famously traveled to Illium (the city descended from Troy) and before the citizens of that city argued that their ancestors had, in fact, triumphed over their famed attackers—a victory obscured only by an elaborate Homeric deception.¹⁵

To a sophist’s audience, such oratorical display appeared spontaneous and effortless—the ad lib creation of the moment coming into existence in their very presence—but that spontaneity was, in fact, an illusion made possible through intense preparation and skillful use of known rhetorical methods. Philostratus says the sophist Scopelian “no doubt gave an impression of indolence and negligence, since during the period before a declamation he was generally in the company of the magistrates of Smyrna transacting public business … in fact during the daytime he did not work much, but he was the most sleepless of men…. Indeed, it is said that he used to work continuously from evening until dawn.”¹⁶ Students flocked to learn the art by studying with its most famous practitioners.¹⁷

A trained speaker could employ such skills to any desired end. If, under the sway of oratory, a fly or a fever could be made to appear attractive, how much more so could it affect the outcome of legal cases or civic decisions? Indeed, such matters are the paramount concern of the rhetorical handbooks of the period.¹⁸ Rhetorical training could also be put in the service of philosophy. Dio describes himself as doing exactly this, especially during his exile.¹⁹ He presented himself as a physician who brought with him medicine truly curative of the soul and productive of the moral good. In doing so, he embodied an ideal that had been developing for centuries.²⁰ While traveling he admonished crowds and told them that they were foolish in the sense that they neither did any of the things that they should do — such as liberating their souls by living more virtuous and better lives—nor did they rid themselves of such evils as ignorance and confusion of mind. Instead, things such as money, reputation, and certain pleasures of the body were sweeping them about. This was so much the case that they found themselves caught in a kind of whirlpool from which they were unable to free themselves.²¹

Dio regularly set himself up as the instructor of whole cities, coming “by divine guidance to address and counsel” them.²² He often contrasted himself with rhetors who were mere “sophists”—those who commonly used oratorical techniques irresponsibly for personal gain. He likened such sophists to physicians who were more interested in being admired for showing off their knowledge than in curing their patients, or else, who “disregard their [patients’] treatment and restoration of health,” preferring to “bring them flowers and courtesans and perfume.”²³ He warned his hearers that there were many in the schools of the sophists “growing old in ignorance” because the speeches that they heard there were like sexual encounters with a eunuch: no matter how constant they prove to be, they will never produce offspring.²⁴ Instead of providing mere entertainment, Dio claimed that discourses like his own “make people happier (ϵὐδαιμονου̑σι) and better and more self-controlled and more able to administer effectively the cities in which they dwell.”²⁵

Crowds of thousands filled amphitheaters to attend Dio’s performances and considered his oratory as pleasurable as any other entertainment.²⁶ On these occasions, he remarked, “I will explain to you more clearly … the nature of yourselves. In fact such an explanation is a useful thing, and it will do you more good than if I were to speak about heaven and earth.”²⁷ He nevertheless cautioned those listening that the truth about themselves was not something that they would want to hear. They would likely resist the stinging words of philosophy by claiming instead that they had suffered “abuse and mischief.”²⁸ “I believe most people feel toward the words of philosophy exactly as they do toward the medicines which physicians administer; that is, no one resorts to them at first, nor buys them until he contracts some unmistakable illness and has pain in some part of his body. And in the same way people are, as a general rule, not willing to listen to the words of the philosopher until some affliction visits them, something which they consider grievous.”²⁹ Dio explained that whenever people find “falsehood to be sweet and pleasurable,” the “truth is bitter and unpleasant.” Like those “with sore eyes—they find the light painful, while the darkness, which permits them to see nothing, is restful and agreeable.” Having grown accustomed to listening to falsehood generation after generation, “it is no easy matter to disabuse these of their opinion, no matter how clearly you prove it (ϵ̓ξϵλϵ́γχῃ) to be wrong.”³⁰

In such a situation, where whole cities have grown accustomed to falsehood, entertaining rhetoric that flatters those listening only perpetuates the problem. Of much more help is a speaker who can “expose human sins by words” in a manner that overcomes the audience members’ resistance so that they actually become receptive to hearing the truth about themselves.³¹ Dio, accordingly, extols those orators “who have the ability through persuasion and reason to calm and soothe the soul.”³² Observing in his day “a great shortage of experts” in this kind of healing, Dio describes them as “the saviors and guardians of all who can be saved, confining and controlling vice before it reaches its final stage.”³³

Dio sought to guide those hearing him in the city of Tarsus to see the truth about themselves. He assured them that his therapeutic speech would not be “overly frank” and “not touch upon all the ailments that afflict” them, but would rather limit itself “to just one item or maybe two.”³⁴ Consequently, he explained to the people of Tarsus, “it is a very mild medicine you are getting in this speech of mine, much less severe than your case calls for.”³⁵ He told them that even though they walked and talked, most of them were in fact asleep. This may not be apparent to one untrained at perceiving the signs (σημϵι̑α).³⁶ To the trained eye it is evident that “practically all their actions bear a resemblance to the dream state.” Although “they experience joy and sorrow, and courage and timidity,” they do so “for no reason at all.” Although “they are enthusiastic, they desire the impossible, and what is unreal they regard as real, while what is real they fail to perceive.”³⁷

He cautioned them, more specifically, that they considered themselves happy (ϵὐδαίμονας) and blessed (μακαρίους) because of such things that orators regularly praised: Tarsus was the capital city of Cilicia; it occupied a fertile land where the necessities of life were found in abundance and had a river running through the heart of the city.³⁸ He, nevertheless, sought to persuade them saying that these things “do not make you happy (οὐκ ϵ̓στϵ̀ ϵὐδαίμονϵς), not even if the mighty Nile itself should flow through your city with waters clearer than Castalia.”³⁹ Indeed, when Dio visited Alexandria, Egypt, he praised their river and soil and harbors, and then asked the crowd why they were pleased since he had praised everything but them—things independent of their own personal attributes.⁴⁰ According to Dio, the populations of both cities suffered the emotional and physical effects of their mistaken judgments of value.

He exhorted the Alexandrians, “perhaps it is high time for you to cease your Bacchic revels and instead attend (προσϵ́χϵιν) to yourselves.”⁴¹ Rather than wait until some catastrophe upset their way of life, or to continue to lose themselves in distractions like the theater, Dio challenged them to begin to care for themselves and reorder their lives so that they would live according to a better set of values that places a premium on more stable and permanent goods. In doing so perhaps they will, in words drawn from one of his speeches at Tarsus, see that “the greatest things, yes the only things worthy of serious pursuit, were present then [in the classical age], are present now, and always will be. Over these no one, surely, has authority, whether to confer them on another or to take them away from the one who has them, but, on the contrary, they are always at one’s disposal, whether it be a private citizen or the body politic.”⁴²

Internalizing this mental conversion to such a degree that it actually reshapes daily activities is like an extended recuperation from an illness or injury. Dio states,

[T]he process of healing and knitting together requires time and serious attention, so it is also in the case of cities…. For not among you alone, I dare say, but also among all other peoples, such a result requires a great deal of therapy (θϵραπϵίας)—or, shall I say, prayer? For [it will] only [occur] by getting rid of the vices that excite and disturb people, the vices of envy, greed, contentiousness, the striving in each case to promote one’s own welfare at the expense of both one’s native land and the common weal.⁴³

Dio commends both education (παιδϵίαν) and reason (λόγον) as the essential ingredients of the curative process, stating that the one “who throughout life employs that remedy with consistency finally comes to a healthy, happy end” (τϵ́λος ὑγιϵ̀ς καὶ ϵὔδαιμον).⁴⁴ By contrast, those who avoid the cure of their souls by never “giving ear to chastening reason” have no protection from their own passions and survive adrift on “a sea of senseless opinion and misery.”⁴⁵

Psychagogy in Its Classical Form

Dio was but one celebrated instance of a larger cultural phenomenon.⁴⁶ Philostratus states that the flourishing of eloquence that is the subject of his history was nothing new in his time. It was instead a renewal of something old, a “second sophistic.”⁴⁷ Indeed, every practitioner would trace the origins of the art back to an earlier time.⁴⁸ Consequently, to understand a figure like Dio, it is necessary to look back to the Greek classical age. There one finds the conditions that make possible the cultural category of the philosophical orator who acts as a physician that cures souls with words.

Homer’s Odyssey begins not with the epic heroism of Odysseus, but with the young Telemachos grieving over the absence of his father who had not been heard from in the years following the war with Troy. Telemachos sits passively among his mother’s shameless suitors as they unjustly consume the household goods while eating, drinking, singing, and dancing. The situation changes only because of the intervention of the goddess Athena who, disguised as the elderly family friend Mentes, provides guidance to the young man. Mentes asks Telemachos, “Are you, grown as you are, the very child of Odysseus?” He answers, “My mother says indeed I am his. I, for my part, do not know.”⁴⁹ Although Telemachos bears an outward resemblance to his father, he has no certainty of his own identity.⁵⁰ Without this conviction, he sits idly among his mother’s suitors—remarkably indistinguishable from them, or from any other citizen of Ithaca for that matter.

Telemachos lacks not only self-knowledge, but also a sense of his own agency. After remarking that Odysseus, Telemachos’ father, certainly would drive out the suitors, Mentes laments, “How great your need is now of the absent Odysseus!”⁵¹ Rather than remain passive and continue to wait as a spectator for his father’s return or the eventual triumph of the suitors, Mentes admonishes the young man to consider how he could force the suitors out of his household.⁵² This charge requires Telemachos to mature into the image...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part One. A Classical Ideal
• Part Two. Revising and Recontextualizing Classical Therapy
• Part Three. Augustine’s Homiletical Practice
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index