CHAPTER XXXIII. Conclusion
122. But somewhere this book must have an end. You can see for yourself whether you should call it an Enchiridion, or use it as one. But since I have judged that your zeal in Christ ought not to be spurned and since I believe and hope for good things for you through the help of our Redeemer, and since I love you greatly as one of the members of his body, I have written this book for you--may its usefulness match its prolixity!--on Faith, Hope, and Love.
[Footnotes moved to the end and renumbered]
I Cor. 1:20.
Wis. 6:26 (Vulgate).
A later interpolation, not found in the best MSS., adds, "As no one can exist from himself, so also no one can be wise in himself save only as he is enlightened by Him of whom it is written, 'All wisdom is from God' ."
A transliteration of the Greek egceiridion, literally, a handbook or manual.
Cf. Gal. 5:6.
Cf. I Cor. 13:10, 11.
I Cor. 3:11.
Already, very early in his ministry (397), Augustine had written De agone Christiano , in which he had reviewed and refuted a full score of heresies threatening the orthodox faith.
The Apostles' Creed. Cf. Augustine's early essay On Faith and the Creed .
Lucan, Pharsalia , II, 15.
Virgil, Aeneid , IV, 419. The context of this quotation is Dido's lament over Aeneas' prospective abandonment of her. She is saying that if she could have foreseen such a disaster, she would have been able to bear it. Augustine's criticism here is a literalistic quibble.
Sacra eloquia --a favorite phrase of Augustine's for the Bible.
Rom. 8:24, 25 (Old Latin).
One of the standard titles of early Greek philosophical treatises was peri fnsewz, which would translate into Latin as De rerum natura . This is, in fact, the title of Lucretius' famous poem, the greatest philosophical work written in classical Latin.
This basic motif appears everywhere in Augustine's thought as the very foundation of his whole system.
This section (Chs. III and IV) is the most explicit statement of a major motif which pervades the whole of Augustinian metaphysics. We see it in his earliest writings, Soliloquies , 1, 2, and De ordine , II, 7. It is obviously a part of the Neoplatonic heritage which Augustine appropriated for his Christian philosophy. The good is positive, constructive, essential; evil is privative, destructive, parasitic on the good. It has its origin, not in nature, but in the will. Cf. Confessions , Bk. VII, Chs. III, V, XII-XVI; On Continence , 14-16; On the Gospel of John , Tractate XCVIII, 7; City of God , XI, 17; XII, 7-9.
This refers to Aristotle's well-known principle of "the excluded middle."
Cf. Matt. 12:33.
Virgil, Georgios , II, 490.
Ibid ., 479.
Sed in via pedum, non in via morum.
Virgil, Eclogue , VIII, 42. The context of the passage is Damon's complaint over his faithless Nyssa; he is here remembering the first time he ever saw her--when he was twelve! Cf. Theocritus , II, 82.
Cf. Matt. 5:37.
Cf. Confessions, Bk. X, Ch. XXIII.
Ad consentium contra mendacium , CSEL (J. Zycha, ed.), Vol. 41, pp. 469‑528; also Migne, PL , 40, c. 517-548; English translation by H.B. Jaffee in Deferrari, St. Augustine: Treatises on Various Subjects (The Fathers of the Church, New York, 1952), pp. 113-179. This had been written about a year earlier than the Enchiridion . Augustine had also written another treatise On Lying much earlier, c. 395; see De mendacio in CSEL (J. Zycha, ed.), Vol. 41, pp. 413-466; Migne, PL , 40, c. 487-518; English translation by M.S. Muldowney in Deferrari, op. cit ., pp. 47-109. This summary of his position here represents no change of view whatever on this question.
Sallust, The War with Catiline , X, 6-7.
Cf. Acts 12:9.
Virgil, Aeneid , X, 392.
This refers to one of the first of the Cassiciacum dialogues, Contra Academicos . The gist of Augustine's refutation of skepticism is in III, 23ff. Throughout his whole career he continued to maintain this position: that certain knowledge begins with self-knowledge. Cf. Confessions , Bk. V, Ch. X, 19; see also City of God , XI, xxvii.
A direct contrast between suspensus assenso --the watchword of the Academics--and assensio , the badge of Christian certitude.
See above, VII, 90.
Cf. Luke 20:36.
Wis. 11:20.
II Peter 2:19.
I Cor. 7:25.
Eph. 2:8, 9.
Cf. Gal. 6:15; II Cor. 5:17.
Prov. 8:35 (LXX).
From the days at Cassiciacum till the very end, Augustine toiled with the mystery of the primacy of God's grace and the reality of human freedom. Of two things he was unwaveringly sure, even though they involved him in a paradox and the appearance of confusion. The first is that God's grace is not only primary but also sufficient as the ground and source of human willing. And against the Pelagians and other detractors from grace, he did not hesitate to insist that grace is irresistible and inviolable. Cf. On Grace and Free Will , 99, 41-43; On the Predestination of the Saints , 19:10; On the Gift of Perseverance , 41; On the Soul and Its Origin , 16; and even the Enchiridion , XXIV, 97.
But he never drew from this deterministic emphasis the conclusion that man is unfree and everywhere roundly rejects the not illogical corollary of his theonomism, that man's will counts for little or nothing except as passive agent of God's will. He insists on responsibility on man's part in responding to the initiatives of grace. For this emphasis, which is characteristically directed to the faithful themselves, see On the Psalms , LXVIII, 7-8; On the Gospel of John , Tractate, 53:6-8; and even his severest anti-Pelagian tracts: On Grace and Free Will , 6-8, 10, 31 and On Admonition and Grace , 2-8.
Ps. 58:11 (Vulgate).
Cf. Matt. 5:44.
The theme that he had explored in Confessions , Bks. I-IX. See especially Bk. V, Chs. X, XIII; Bk. VII, Ch. VIII; Bk. IX, Ch. I.
Cf. Ps. 90:9.
Rom. 5:9, 10.