Truth to Power: the Politics of Theological Free Speech in the Cappadocian Fathers and Augustine of Hippo by Jennifer Lynn Bene
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Truth to Power: The Politics of Theological Free Speech in the Cappadocian Fathers and Augustine of Hippo by Jennifer Lynn Benedict Graduate Program in Religion Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ James Smith, Supervisor ___________________________ Stanley Hauerwas ___________________________ Meredith Riedel ___________________________ C. Kavin Rowe Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Program in Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University 2018 ABSTRACT Truth to Power: The Politics of Theological Free Speech in the Cappadocian Fathers and Augustine of Hippo by Jennifer Lynn Benedict Graduate Program in Religion Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ James Smith, Supervisor ___________________________ Stanley Hauerwas ___________________________ Meredith Riedel ___________________________ C. Kavin Rowe An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Program in Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University 2018 Copyright by Jennifer Lynn Benedict 2018 Abstract This dissertation investigates the political grammars of truth-telling employed by two sets of early Christian authors, the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa), who wrote in Greek, and Augustine of Hippo, who wrote in Latin. My aim is to describe the rules that these thinkers take to order relations implicated in the Christian’s acts of parrhêsia and confessio before other human persons and before the LORD. To this end, I employ methodology derived from ordinary language philosophy (OLP), which understands the meaning of a word to be constituted by its use within the form of life of a particular community. In so doing, I argue against the conclusions of Michel Foucault on the politics of truth-telling in the early Christian tradition. Foucault depicts parrhêsia as an act of individual self-expression that belongs to an order of familiar, and fearless relations between the speaker and a God who holds no standards of judgment that the Christian does not always already meet. By contrast, he characterizes confessio as a form of cringing and self-doubting submission in fear that belongs to a hierarchical politics of discipline and punishment in which unnecessary distance is introduced to relations between the Christian and the LORD through the mediation of human authorities. iv A far different picture emerges when we look at the grammars of parrhêsia and confessio as these terms were used by the Cappadocians and Augustine within their historical and cultural contexts – the forms of life of their linguistic communities – rather than interpreting them through the lens of our own post- Enlightenment languages and politics. The conceptual grammar of parrhêsia employed by both pagans and Christians required the speaker to calculate her ability to justify and demonstrate the acceptability of herself and her speech on criteria held by listeners, and to use non-verbal means of assuring that what she displayed and disclosed in speaking could meet these criteria. The grammar of confessio , as Augustine presents it, allows speech to serve as a medium through which the speaker can be made righteous and brought into right relationship with the LORD by dispositions of faith, humility, and ecstatic self-dispossession in the act of speaking. v Matri meae, cuius fides in me et in fidelitatem Domini Dei numquam fefellit, Et Paulo, amico caro, qui cum dona dederit veritatem gratiae didici. Sed super omnes Domino, sine quo nihil. vi Contents Abstract .........................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................x Introduction. The Builders at Babel: A Fable ...............................................................1 Chapter 1. Language, Politics, and Parrhêsia .............................................................10 1.1 Language: Translations and Definitions ............................................................12 1.1.1. Definitions, Meaning, Understanding ........................................................16 1.1.2. – Translation vs. Definition .........................................................................23 1.1.3. Wittgenstein, Grammar, and Forms of Life ...............................................36 1.2 Politics .................................................................................................................39 1.3. Parrhêsia and Early Christianity: Status Quaestionum ...................................48 1.3.1. Patristic Theology, Early Christianity, and Philology ................................49 1.3.2. A Review of the Literature on Parrhêsia ....................................................62 1.3.3. Michel Foucault on Parrhêsia and Confessio in the Christian Tradition .72 1.3.4. Contemporary Conversations and the Contribution of the Dissertation 81 Chapter 2. The Pagan Grammar of Parrhêsia ............................................................98 2.1. Freedom of Speech ............................................................................................98 2.1.1. Freedom of Speech as a Universal Human Right .......................................99 2.1.2. Freedom of Speech as a Universal Human Right .....................................105 2.1.3 Freedom of Speech as a Universal Human Right .....................................112 vii 2.2. The Grammar of Parrhêsia in the Ancient Greek Pagan Tradition ..............118 2.3. A Diachronic Study of Parrhêsia in the Ancient Greek Pagan Tradition .....125 2.3.1. The Homeric Tradition .............................................................................128 2.3.2. Athenian Democracy in the Classical Age ..............................................137 2.3.3. Politics between Rhetoric and Philosophy: The Case of Socrates .........154 2.3.4. Philosophy and Empire: Friends and Flatterers .....................................175 Chapter 3. Christian Parrhêsia in a Pagan World ....................................................197 3.1. Hellenic Paideia , Christian Politeia , and Common Criteria ..........................200 3.1.1. Paideia and Paganism ................................................................................203 3.1.2. Basil’s Advice to Young Christians on “the Words and the Bees” ..........223 3.1.3. Christianity as Cosmopolitanism .............................................................229 3.2. Basil Between Two Emperors .........................................................................237 3.3. Martyrs and the Parrhêsiastic Agôn ...............................................................252 Chapter 4. Parrhêsia towards the LORD ..................................................................274 4.1. Debt and Ransom, Slavery and Salvation .......................................................277 4.1.1. Neither a Borrower Nor a Lender Be ........................................................285 4.1.2. Christ’s Parrhêsiastic Deception of the Devil ..........................................297 4.2. Family Resemblances ......................................................................................313 4.2.1. Our Father(s) ............................................................................................313 4.2.2. Macrina’s Cosmetics ................................................................................321 4.2.3. Uncovering the Nakedness of Parents ....................................................335 viii Chapter 5. Parrhêsia , Confessio , and Truth-Telling .................................................351 5.1. Pagan and Christian Latin Translations of Parrhêsia ....................................352 5.2. A Grammar of Confession ..............................................................................359 5.3. Augustine and Confessio .................................................................................371 Chapter 6. Augustine and the Ecstasy of Truth .......................................................379 6.1. Duplicity and the Lie .......................................................................................382 6.2. Truth, Unity, and Assent ................................................................................407 6.3. Christ: Humility, Harmony, and the Justice of Truth ...................................423 6.3.1. Potentia and Iustitia .................................................................................430 6.3.2. Manifestation and Simulation .................................................................440 6.4. Boasting, Praise, and Predication ..................................................................452 Conclusions ................................................................................................................471 Bibliography ...............................................................................................................476 Biography ...................................................................................................................499 ix Acknowledgements There are many who have helped with this project both directly and indirectly. I am thankful, first of all, to and for Augustine of Hippo, Basil