RELG 399 Fall2019

McGill University

School of Religious Studies

RELG 399

TEXTS OF CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY (Late Antiquity)

In the Fall Term of 2019 this seminar course will focus on Christian spirituality in Late Antiquity with close study and interpretation of Aurelius

Augustine’s spiritual odyssey the Confessiones, his account of creation in

De genesi ad litteram, and his handbook of hermeneutics De doctrina

Christiana. We will also read Ancius Manlius Severinus Boethius’s

treatment of theodicy in De consolatione philosophiae, his De Trinitate,

and selections from De Musica. Professor: Torrance Kirby Office Hours: Birks 206, Tuesdays/Thursdays, 10:00–11:00 am Email: [email protected]

Birks Building, Room 004A Tuesdays/Thursdays 4:05–5:25 pm

COURSE SYLLABUS—FALL TERM 2019

Date

Reading

3 September 5 September

INTRODUCTION

Aurelius Augustine, Confessiones

Book I, Early Years
10 September 12 September 17 September 19 September
Book II, Theft of Pears Book III, Adolescence and Student Life Book IV, Manichee and Astrologer Book V, Carthage, Rome, and Milan

*Confirm Mid-Term Essay Topics (1500-2000 words)

(NB Consult the Style Sheet, essay-writing guidelines and evaluation rubric in the appendix to the syllabus.)

24 September 26 September 1 October
Book VI, Secular Ambitions and Conflicts Book VII, Neoplatonic Quest for the Good

Book VIII, Tolle, lege; tolle, lege

Book IX, Vision at Ostia

3 October

8 October

Book X, 1-26 Memory

*Mid-term Essays due at beginning of class. Essay Conferences to be scheduled for week of 21 October

10 October 15 October 17 October

Book X, 27-43 “Late have I loved you”

Book XI, Time and Eternity Book XII, Creation

Essay Conferences begin this week, Birks 206.

22 October 24 October
Book XIII, Trinity in the Soul

Aurelius Augustine, On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, I.1-21

RELG 399 TEXTS OF CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY

2

Date

Reading

29 October

Augustine, On Christian Teaching

Book I
31 October

Augustine, On Christian Teaching

Book II
5 November

7 November 12 November 14 November 19 November

Ancius Manlius Severinus Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy

Book I, Sad Songs

Boethius, Consolation

Book II, Seduced by Lady Fortuna

Book III.1-8, Lady Philosophy’s cure

Book III.9-12, True happiness

Book IV, The problem of evil

Confirm Research Essay Topics

21 November

Book V, Providence and Free Will
26 November 28 November 3 December

Boethius, The Trinity is One God, not three gods Boethius, On Music Boethius, On Music

Term Research Essays (2500-3000 words) due at beginning of class.
EVALUATION

Preparation of texts and participation in seminar discussion: 35% Seminar Presentations: 15% Mid-Term Essay and Conference: 20% Research Essay: 30%

SOURCES ON-LINE

Augustine of Hippo, J.J. O’Donnell. http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine.html

Bibliography. http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/confbibl.html Albert C. Outler’s translation (1955). http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/confessions-bod.html Latin Confessions (Knoll’s editio minor of 1898). http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/latinconf/latinconf.html Links. http://members.aol.com/jamietampa/Augustine/links.html Boethius etext: http://www.gradesaver.com/the-consolation-of-philosophy/e-text/

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY TEXTS

Augustine, Aurelius. Confessions. English translation by Gillian Clark. Cambridge: CUP, 1993.

——— . Confessiones. Latin text ed. with commentary by J. J. O’Donnell. Oxford: OUP, 1992.

Electronic edition available online at <http://www.stoa.org/hippo/>.
*——— . Confessions. English translation with an introduction and notes by Henry Chadwick.
Oxford: OUP, 1991. [Recommended edn.]

———.

Confessionum

libri

XIII.

Ed.

by

B.G.

Teubner.

Stuttgart,

1985.

———. Confessionum libri XIII : quos post Martinum Skutella iterum. In Aurelii Augustini
Opera, vol. 27. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina. Turnholt: Brepols, 1968.

———. Confessiones. Latin text with an English translation by William Watts (1631). London:

3

William Heinemann (Loeb Classical Library), 1960-1961.
———. Confessions. English translation by R.S. Pine-Coffin. Harmondsworth, England:
Penguin Books, 1961.
Augustine, Aurelius. The Literal Meaning of Genesis. New York: Newman Press, 1982. *Boethius, transl. P G. Walsh. The Consolation of Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. Boethius, transl. Calvin M. Bower and Claude V. Palisca. Fundamentals of Music. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1989.

SECONDARY TEXTS

Arnold, Duane W. H, and Pamela Bright. De Doctrina Christiana: A Classic of Western Culture.

Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995.

Brown, Peter. Augustine and Sexuality. Protocol of the Forty Sixth Colloquy, The Center for
Hermeneutical Studies in Hellenistic and Modern Culture. Berkeley, 1983.
———. Augustine of Hippo: a Biography. Berkeley, 1968.

Burrell, David. 'Reading "The Confessions" of Augustine: An Exercise in Theological
Understanding.' The Journal of Religion 50 (1970), 327-351.
Burton, Philip. Language in the Confessions of Augustine. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2007. Cambronne, Patrice. 'Poétique et langage et théologie. La mer et l'amer dans les Confessions de saint Augustin.' Orphea voce 2 (1985), 21-32.
Capps, Donald. 'Parabolic Events in Augustine's Autobiography.' Theology Today 40 (1983),
260-272.
Capps, Donald. 'Augustine as narcissist: Comments on Paul Rigby's "Paul Ricoeur,

Freudianism, and Augustine's Confessions.”’ Journal of the American Academy of

Religion 53 (1985), 115-27.

Caputo, John D. and Michael J. Scanlon, eds. Augustine and postmodernism: confessions and

circumfession. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.

Cary, Phillip. Inner grace: Augustine in the traditions of Plato and Paul. Oxford: OUP, 2008. ———. Outward signs: the powerlessness of external things in Augustine's thought. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2008.
Chadwick, Henry. Augustine. Oxford Past Masters Series. New York, 1986.

———. Boethius: the Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology and Philosophy. by Henry

Chadwick. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981.
Clark, Elizabeth A. 'Vitiated Seeds and Holy Vessels: Augustine's Manichaean Past.' Ascetic

Piety and Women's Faith: Essays in Late Ancient Christianity, 291-349. Queenston, NY,

1986.
———. '"Adam's Only Companion": Augustine and the Early Christian Debate on Marriage.' RA
21 (1986), 139-62.
Clark, Gillian. Augustine: the Confessions. Exeter, UK: Bristol Phoenix, 2005. Clark, Mary T. Augustine. Outstanding Christian Thinkers Series. Washington: Georgetown
University Press, 1994.
———. Augustinian Personalism. Villanova, Pa.: Villanova University Press, 1970.

Cochrane, Charles Norris. Christianity and Classical Culture. Oxford, 1942. Colish, Marcia L. The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages: II, Stoicism in
Christian Latin Thought through the Sixth Century. Leiden : E.J. Brill, 1985: Studies in

the History of Christian Thought, 35.
Cooper, John C. 'Why Did Augustine Write Books XI-XIII of the Confessions.' Augustinian
Studies2 (1971), 37-46.

Courcelle, P. Les Confessions de Saint Augustin dans la tradition littéraire. Paris, 1973.

———. 'Note sur le "tolle, lege"' L'Année theologique 12 (1951) 253-60. Crouse, Robert. '”In multa defluximus”: Confessions X, 29-43, and St. Augustine's Theory of

Personality.' Neoplatonism and Early Christian Thought: Essays in Honour of A. H.

4

Armstrong, ed. H. J. Blumenthal and R. A. Markus, 180-5 London, 1981.
———. '"Recurrens in te unum": The Pattern of St. Augustine's Confessions.' Studia Patristica
14 (1976), 389-392.
———. '"In Aenigmate Trinitas" (Confessions, XIII,5,6). The Conversion of Philosophy in St.

Augustine's Confessions.' Dionysius 11 (1987) 53-62.

Currie, H. M. 'Saint Augustine and Virgil.' Proceedings of the Virgil Society 14 (1975-76), 6-16. Daly, Lawrence J. 'Psychohistory and St. Augustine's Conversion Process: An Historiographical
Critique ' Augustiniana 28 (1978), 231-254.
Desmond, William 'Augustine's Confessions: On Desire, Conversion and Reflection.' The Irish

Theological Quarterly 47 (1980), 24-33.

Dittes, J.E. 'Augustine: Search for a fail-safe God to trust.' Journal for the Scientific Study of

Religion 25 (1986), 57-63.

Dodds, E. R. 'Augustine's Confessions: A study of spiritual maladjustment.' Hibbert Journal 26
(1928), 459-473.
Dombrowski, Daniel A. 'Starnes on Augustine's Theory of Infancy: A Piagetian Critique.'

Augustinian Studies 11 (1980), 125-133.
Dutoit, E. '"O aeterna veritas et vera caritas et cara aeternitas". Conf. VII 10, 16: La gradation

chez S. Augustin.' Augustinus 13 (1968), 153-66.
Elizabeth I, Queen of England. Ed. Noel H. Kaylor and Philip E. Phillips. The Consolation of

Queen Elizabeth I: The Queen's Translation of Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae: Public Record Office, Manuscript Sp 12/289. Tempe, Ariz: Arizona Center

for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2009.
Evans, G. R. Augustine on Evil. Cambridge, 1982. Ferguson, Margaret 'Saint Augustine's Region of Unlikeness: The Crossing of Exile and
Language.' Georgia Review 29 (1975) 842-64.
Ferrari, Leo 'Monica on the Wooden Ruler (Conf. 3.11.19).' Augustinian Studies 6 (1975), 193-
205.
———. 'Paul at the Conversion of Augustine (Conf. VIII, 12, 29-30).' Augustinian Studies 11
(1980), 5-20.
———. 'The Dreams of Monica in Augustine's Confessions.' Augustinian Studies 10 (1979), 3-
17.
———. 'The pear-theft in Augustine's Confessions.' REAug 16 (1970), 233-242. ———. 'Astronomy and Augustine's Break with the Manichees.' REAug 19 (1973), 263-76.

———. The Conversions of Saint Augustine. Villanova, 1984. Fitzgerald, Allan, ed. Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia. Grand Rapids, MI, 1999.

Fontan, P. 'Une exégèse néo-platonicienne? (Le livre XII des Confessions).' Bulletin de

littérature ecclésiastique 88 (1987); 88 (1987), 316-22.

Fredriksen, Paula. 'Beyond the body/soul dichotomy: Augustine's answer to Mani, Plotinus and
Julian.' RA 23 (1988), 87-114.
———. 'Augustine and his analysts: The possibility of a psycho-history.' Soundings 51 (1978),
206-27.
Frend, W.H.C. 'The Family of Augustine: A Microcosm of Religious Change in North Africa.'

Congresso internazionale su s. Agostino nel XVI centenario della conversione, Roma, 15-20 settembre 1986, Atti (Rome, 1987), 1.135-52.

Gorman, Michael M. 'Aurelius Augustinus: The Testimony of the Oldest Manuscripts of Saint
Augustine's Works.' Journal of Theological Studies 35 (1984), 475-480.

Harrison, Carol. Beauty and Revelation in the Thought of Saint Augustine. Oxford Theological

Monographs. New York, 1992.
Jackson, M.G. St. A. 'Confessions V,4,7 and Its Classical Background.' Congresso

5

internazionale su s. Agostino nel XVI centenario della conversione, Roma, 15-20 settembre 1986, Atti (Rome, 1987), 1.413-8.

Jamieson, I. W. A. 'Augustine's Confessiones: The Structure of Humility.' Augustiniana 24
(1974), 234-246.

Kennedy, Robert P. and Kim Paffenroth, eds. A Reader’s Companion to Augustine’s

Confessions. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.

Kenney, John Peter. The mysticism of Saint Augustine : rereading the Confessions. New York:

Routledge, 2005.

Kirby, W. J. Torrance. “Praise as the Soul’s Overcoming of Time in the Confessions of St.

Augustine,” Pro Ecclesia 6.2 (1997), 333-350.

Kirwan, Christopher. Augustine. London, 1989.

Kuntz, Paul G. 'Augustine: From Homo Erro to Homo Viator.' Augustinian Studies 11 (1980), 79-

89. La Bonnardière, Anne-Marie, ed. Saint Augustin et la Bible. Paris, 1986.

Lawless, George. Augustine of Hippo and his Monastic Rule. Oxford, 1987.

———. 'Interior Peace in the "Confessiones" of St. Augustine.' REAug 26 (1980), 45-61

Louth, Andrew. The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition. Oxford, 1981.

Lyotard, Jean-François. The confession of Augustine; translated by Richard Beardsworth.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000.

McMahon, Robert. Augustine's Prayerful Ascent: An Essay on the Literary Form of the
Confessions. Athens, Ga., 1989.

Mallard, W. 'The Incarnation in Augustine's Conversion.' RA 15 (1980), 80-98. Mann, William E. 'The Theft of the Pears.' Apeiron 12 (1978), 51-8. Marenbon, John. Boethius. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

de Margerie, Bertrand. Introduction à l'histoire de l'exégèse: III, Saint Augustin. Paris, 1983.

Markus, Robert A. 'Marius Victorinus and Augustine' Cambridge History of Later Greek and
Early Medieval Philosophy, ed. A. H. Armstrong Cambridge, 1967, pp. 329-419.
———. 'St. Augustine on Signs.' Phronesis 2 (1957), 60-83; repr. paperback Augustine (1972). ———. '"Imago" and "similitudo" in Augustine.' REAug 10 (1964), 125-43.

———. Conversion and Disenchantment in Augustine's Spiritual Career. Villanova, 1989 Marrou, H.-I. Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique. Paris, 1958.

———. 'Le dogme de la résurrection des corps et la théologie des valeurs humaines selon l'enseignement de saint Augustin.' REAug 12 (1966), 111-36.
Mazzeo, Joseph. 'St. Augustine's Rhetoric of Silence.' Journal of the History of Ideas 23 (1962),
175-96.

Meijering, E. P. Augustin über Schöpfung, Ewigkeit und Zeit: Das elfte Buch der Bekenntnisse.

Leiden: Brill, 1979.
Menn, Stephen Philip. Descartes and Augustine. Cambridge: CUP, 1998. Miles, Margaret. Augustine on the Body. Missoula, Mont., 1979. ———. 'Vision: The Eye of the Body and the Eye of the Mind in Saint Augustine's De trinitate

and Confessions.' Journal of Religion 63 (1983), 125-142.

———. 'Infancy,Parenting,and Nourishment in Augustine's Confessions.' The Journal of the

American Academy of Religion 50 (1982), 349-364.

O'Brien, William J. 'Towards Understanding Original Sin in Augustine's Confessions.' Thought
49 (1974), 436-446.
O'Connell, Robert J. 'Isaiah's Mothering God in St. Augustine's Confessions.' Thought 58
(1983), 188-206.

———. St. Augustine's Confessions: The Odyssey of Soul. Cambridge, Mass., 1969. ———. The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine's Later Works. New York, 1987 ———. 'The Fall of the Soul in the Confessions.' Congresso internazionale su s. Agostino nel

6

XVI centenario della conversione, Roma, 15-20 Sett. 1986, Atti. (Rome, 1987), 2.45-58.
O'Daly, G. J. P. Augustine's Philosophy of Mind. Berkeley, 1987.

———. 'Time as Distentio and St. Augustine's Exegesis of Philippians 3,12-14. ' REAug 23
(1977), 265-71.

O'Donovan, Oliver. The Problem of Self-Love in St. Augustine. New Haven, 1980.

O'Meara, John J. Understanding Augustine. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997.

———. The Young Augustine. London, 1954. Pagels, Elaine. Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. New York, 1988.

Quinn, John M. A Companion to the Confessions of St. Augustine. New York : P. Lang, 2002.

Rigby, P. 'Paul Ricoeur, Freudianism, and Augustine's Confessions.' Journal of the American

Academy of Religion 53 (1985), 93-114.

Rist, John M. Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized. New York, 1994.

Stark, Judith Chelius, ed. Feminist interpretations of Augustine. University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007.
Starnes, Colin. 'The Place and Purpose of the Tenth Book of the Confessions.' Congresso

internazionale su s. Agostino nel XVI centenario della conversione, Roma, 15-20 settembre 1986, Atti. (Rome, 1987), 2.95-103.
———. Augustine's Conversion: A Commentary on the Argument of Books I-IX of the

Confessions. Waterloo, Ont., 1990.

Studer, Basil. The Grace of Christ and the Grace of God in Augustine of Hippo: Christocentrism or Theocentrism? Collegeville, MN, 1997.

Suchocki, Marjorie 'The Symbolic Structure of Augustine's Confessions.' The Journal of the

American Academy of Religion 50 (1982), 365-378.

TeSelle, Eugene. Augustine the Theologian. New York, 1970.

Teske, Roland. To know God and the soul: essays on the thought of Saint Augustine.

Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008.
———. 'Platonic Reminiscence and Memory of the Present in St. Augustine.' The New

Scholasticism 58 (1984), 220-235.

———. 'The World-Soul and Time in St. Augustine.' Augustinian Studies 14 (1983), 75-92.

Thompson, Christopher J. Christian doctrine, Christian identity: Augustine and the narratives of

character. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1999.

Vaught, Carl G. Access to God in Augustine's Confessions: books X-XIII. Albany, NY: State

University of New York Press, 2005.

———. Encounters with God in Augustine's Confessions: books VII-IX. Albany, NY: State

———. The journey toward God in Augustine's Confessions : books I-VI. Albany: State

7

McGILL UNIVERSITY
School of Religious Studies

STYLE SHEET

ESSAYS AND TERM-PAPERS

Individual professors will specify the length of papers, though the text of term-papers, excluding endnotes and bibliography, is usually fifteen (15) to twenty (20) pages (3750 to 5000 words) long. Individual professors will also generally give specifications about research protocols and methodologies. In the Human Sciences, there is an increasing tendency to use the "author-date" system of documentation. This is rapidly replacing the older "footnote-bibliography" system and is recommended by this style sheet. The author-date system is more efficient and takes up less space. Instead of footnotes or endnotes, all references are placed within the body of the paper by noting in brackets simply the author's name, the date of publication when necessary, and the page number(s). A List of References with full bibliographic data is then given at the end of the paper. (Examples are given below in sec. IV A-C). Since some professors may wish to retain the footnote-bibliography system, section IV D below gives examples for this kind of procedure.

RESPONSIBILITY