Abstracts
Augustiniana 62(2012)1-2
The present article argues that the dynamism of imago Dei in Augustine's De Trinitate XIV should be approached as a mind-centered epistemology, that ontology and epistemology should be combined in order to understand Augustine's use of imago Dei. Previous interpretations of imago Dei in De Trinitate XIV remained on the ontological level. As such, the epistemological dimension of the imago Dei, facilitated by the shift from the mind's 'remember itself - understand itself - love itself' to 'remember God - understand God - love God', is not taken into account. This epistemological and dynamic reading is based on the observations that, for Augustine: (1) the triad 'remember - understand - love' is a logic that the mind applies to itself and God (rather than an ontological change), and (2) the mind's self-knowing and self-thinking distinguishes 'remember itself - understand itself - love itself' from 'remember God - understand God - love God'.
key words
De Trinitate - imago Dei - mens - 'remember God - understand God - love God' - se nosse
This article provides a historical and doctrinal introduction to, and annotated translation of, James of Viterbo's Quodlibet I, 17, in which James asks whether or not the pope has the right to absolve usurers. This article argues that the principle interest of the Quodlibet lies in the philosophical justification it provides for the pope's supremacy in temporal matters. It als examines the relation between the Quodlibet and the later De regimine Christiano and points to a slight shift in James' position towards greater moderation.
key words
James of Viterbo - Quodlibet I 17 - De regimine Christiano - pope's supremacy
Compared to the three mendicant orders that settled down in Hungary during the Middle Ages, the Order of the hermits of saint Augustine is the less investigated by researchers. This article (including a table of convents and a map) focuses on four topics that have been more or less explored until now : (1) the implantation of the Order in the Carpathian Basin, (2) the religious activities and spiritual trends of the Hungarian Hermits, (3) the material running of their friaries, (4) their general situation (crisis or revival?) at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Nearly as numerous as the Dominicans, the Hungarian Hermits soon got support from the royal court and the nobility. They were highly educated, took part in missions and sometimes bishopric. The Augustinian friars owned real estate from the beginning of the sixteenth century.
key words
Hungary - Middle Ages - Order of the hermits of saint Augustine - mendicant friars - Cantral Europe - poverty
Nikolaus Besler OESA was one of the most notable representatives of the order at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries. In the German observant congregation he held several positions as a prior of various friaries, as a delegate to Rome, as a companion of the vicar general on visitation journeys, definitor in chapters, etc. He left two versions of his autobiographical records until 1525, which are presented here in annotated edition.
key words
Nikolaus Besler (+ after 1529) - German observant congregation - Reformation - Johann von Staupitz (+ 1524)
On the first of September 1626 La somme théologique des vérités capitales de la religion chréstienne (1625) of Jesuit François Garasse (1584-1631) was condemned by Sorbonne, after a dispute between the author and Jean Duvergier de Hauranne (1581-1643). Jansenius' friend wrote a confutative work Somme des fautes (1626), composed of three books. However, only the first one was published before the condemnation. Did this book have an influence on this affaire? Which one? These are the questions this essay begins from. In this article there are both a reconstruction of the French polemical context of the Seventeenth Century - whose one of the protagonists was Garasse - and an analysis of the criticism addressed to the modern Pelagian opinion of Garasse in Somme des fautes and in Jansenius' Augustinus (1640).
Indeed this affaire also interests Jansenius. In his Correspondence to Saint-Cyran it appears the expression affaire du Plagiaire in order to refer to the case of Garasse and the events of his writing's condemnation.
The term 'Plagiaire' comes from the work Deffence pour Estienne Pasquier, vivant conseiller du Roy etc. contre les impostures et calomniers de François Garasse, written by his sons and Antoine Rémy against Garasse. After an historical and introductive part, this essay addresses Jansenius' criticism to modern Pelagian Garasse contained in his opus magnum and in his letters. The aim of this work - which is particularly concerned with Augustinus - is to show how the criticism to the Pelagian opinion reveals a polemical target addressed not only to the ancient Pelagians, but to the modern ones too. May be the Lovanist (Jansenius) considered a new 'Augustine'?
key words
Jansenius - Saint-Cyran - Pelagians - Jesuits
Augustiniana 62 (2012), 3-4
Pelagius's contributions to the controversy on grace survive only in a fragmentary and incoherent selection, probably chosen by Augustine to support
his caricature "Pelagianism." Thus the letters of Prosper ( ep. 225) and Hilary (ep. 226) are invaluable, for revealing both the coherent doctrine of grace and free will proposed by his "semi-Pelagian" opponents and for their pointing to his own early anti-Manichaean writings, and especially lib. arb., as their source and inspiration. After some attempts to refute this claim, Augustine in fact finally acknowledged his part (in praed. sanct. 3,7-4,8).
Manichaeism of Augustine's time and place was promoted as the true because Pauline Christianity; thus the anti-Manichaean position of Augustine's
reaction never was the naive defense of free will prior to taking account of original sin, as he likes to suggest, but a carefully considered defense of a
minimum of free will in the face of original sin (see lib. arb. III,20,56). By the time of Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas, it had become the main alternative to his anti-Pelagianism, and arguably the only way to reconcile grace and free will. As late as spir. et litt. 33,57 ff. he posed clearly and nearly without bias the fundamental question about the initium gratiae, whether God's universal gift of free will in Creation (as in all version of pelagianism, including his own) or Recreation in Christ (as in his anti-Pelagianism). Only thereafter did he gradually harden his choice of Recreation via Christ's grace to the destruction of free will in the ungraced. His decision to defend his fellow bishops' appeal, in the trial of Caelestius, to infant damnation probably contributed more to this turn than his response, years earlier, to the questions of Simplicianus.
To see that Pelagius was also a follower of Augustine's own semipelagianism requires learning to read Augustine critically. Though that project will require the facing of some unpleasant truths about his polemical methods, beyond them there are rewards. The apparent lack of impartial but forceful critical referees meant that the intellectual quality of the Pelagian controversy was far lower than it should have been. Fortunately, we can make up part of that loss by critical reading. Today we can decide which Augustine we prefer, rather than being obsessed by the question of which is the real Augustine, the "semi-pelagian" or the anti-Pelagian. The real Augustine is he who can be credited for the flourishing of the concept of Christian grace far beyond the narrow bounds of theological controversy.
key words
grace of creation - Lib. arb. III, 20,56 - Spir. et litt. 34,60 - infant damnation - reprobation
Quotations from Augustine have always been attractive, especially those quotations that help religious people to cope with sorrow and pain, or indeed with any event that might occur in human life. In the recently renovated Augustinian Church at Würzburg, a room has been made into a parlour for people in mourning. It is decorated with a sentence attributed to Augustine : "I want you to be" ("Ich will, dass Du bist"). The present article intends to demonstrate the insufficiency of this sentence to fit in with Augustine's theology and pastoral care.
key words
Der Mensch als Gottes Geschöpf - Christi Heilswerk - christliche Existenz - Erlösung - Liebe
The history of the presence of the Hermits of Saint Augustine in the eastern Mediterranean and particularly in Cyprus during the medieval period is poorly understood. Yet few mentions in the sources show the birth of the first convent in Acre in 1290 and the location of the prouincia ultramarina's establishments in the 141h c. The Nicosia convent is the best documented house because of its high status and its prosperity. The Lusignan monarchy,
the Italian merchants and the local elites, with strong financial support, intended to receive some spiritual benefit, and wanted to be buried in the
friars' church. The friars developed the influence of their convent (now Omeriyeh Djami) which has served as a repository for relics of saint Nicolas
of Tolentino and saint Spyridon. Additionally, the study of different sources enables one to identify the function and dedication of the north chapel of the
Augustinian church (Saint-Nicolas of Tolentino) that was previously unknown to us.
key words
Middle Ages - Hermits of Saint Augustine (mendicant order) - province of the Holy Land - Nicosia (Cyprus) - Nicolas of Tolentino (saint, 1245? -1305)
The Spanish Dominican theologian Domingo Bafiez, in the controversy with the Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, developed his own theology of efficacious grace. He held a distinction between sufficient grace and efficacious grace. For the latter, the efficacy is solely due to itself, no human consent being required. In this article, we will investigate Bafiez's theology of efficacious grace. We begin by discussing the metaphysical foundation of efficacious grace: God as the exclusive cause of our existence and movement. This metaphysics implies that when we act, God does not work alongside us to produce the effect, but premoves us to act. It is through the principle of divine premotion that Bafiez established his understanding of efficacious grace: a grace granted by God to infallibly move the elected people to convert to Himself. According to this principle, the efficacy of grace arises from God's will, rather than from His foreknowledge of man's response to His calling. Since efficacious grace is granted by God to the elected people, its implication for predestination will be discussed. In the last section of this article, we will explore how Bafiez harmonised efficacious grace with human freedom. For him, grace moves the human will infallibly, but it happens in such a gentle way that grace never impedes human freedom. Bafiez concluded that true human freedom is not indifferent to the good. On the contrary, it is a fruit of grace's work.
key words
Domingo Bañez - efficacious grace - divine premotion - predestination - free will
- Cheuk Yin YAM & Anthony DUPONT, A mind-centered approach of imago Dei : a synamic construction in AUgustine's De trinitate XIV, Augustiniana 62(2012)1-2, p. 7-43
The present article argues that the dynamism of imago Dei in Augustine's De Trinitate XIV should be approached as a mind-centered epistemology, that ontology and epistemology should be combined in order to understand Augustine's use of imago Dei. Previous interpretations of imago Dei in De Trinitate XIV remained on the ontological level. As such, the epistemological dimension of the imago Dei, facilitated by the shift from the mind's 'remember itself - understand itself - love itself' to 'remember God - understand God - love God', is not taken into account. This epistemological and dynamic reading is based on the observations that, for Augustine: (1) the triad 'remember - understand - love' is a logic that the mind applies to itself and God (rather than an ontological change), and (2) the mind's self-knowing and self-thinking distinguishes 'remember itself - understand itself - love itself' from 'remember God - understand God - love God'.
key words
De Trinitate - imago Dei - mens - 'remember God - understand God - love God' - se nosse
- Antoine CÔTÉ, Le Quodlibet I, question 17 de Jacques de Viterbe : introduction, traduction et notes, Augustiniana 62(2012)1-2, p. 45-76
This article provides a historical and doctrinal introduction to, and annotated translation of, James of Viterbo's Quodlibet I, 17, in which James asks whether or not the pope has the right to absolve usurers. This article argues that the principle interest of the Quodlibet lies in the philosophical justification it provides for the pope's supremacy in temporal matters. It als examines the relation between the Quodlibet and the later De regimine Christiano and points to a slight shift in James' position towards greater moderation.
key words
James of Viterbo - Quodlibet I 17 - De regimine Christiano - pope's supremacy
- Marie-Madeleine de Cevins, Les ermites de saint Augustin en Hongrie médiévale : état des connaissances, Augustiniana 62(2012), 77-117
Compared to the three mendicant orders that settled down in Hungary during the Middle Ages, the Order of the hermits of saint Augustine is the less investigated by researchers. This article (including a table of convents and a map) focuses on four topics that have been more or less explored until now : (1) the implantation of the Order in the Carpathian Basin, (2) the religious activities and spiritual trends of the Hungarian Hermits, (3) the material running of their friaries, (4) their general situation (crisis or revival?) at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Nearly as numerous as the Dominicans, the Hungarian Hermits soon got support from the royal court and the nobility. They were highly educated, took part in missions and sometimes bishopric. The Augustinian friars owned real estate from the beginning of the sixteenth century.
key words
Hungary - Middle Ages - Order of the hermits of saint Augustine - mendicant friars - Cantral Europe - poverty
- Hans SCHNEIDER, Die autobiografischen Aufzeichnungen des Nürnberger Augustinereremiten Nikolaus Besler, Augustiniana 62(2012)1-2, p. 119-152
Nikolaus Besler OESA was one of the most notable representatives of the order at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries. In the German observant congregation he held several positions as a prior of various friaries, as a delegate to Rome, as a companion of the vicar general on visitation journeys, definitor in chapters, etc. He left two versions of his autobiographical records until 1525, which are presented here in annotated edition.
key words
Nikolaus Besler (+ after 1529) - German observant congregation - Reformation - Johann von Staupitz (+ 1524)
- Chiara CATALANO, Dai pelagiani ai recentiores : l'affaire du plagiaire (Garasse) nell'Augustinus e nella corrispondenza di Cornelis Jansen, Augustiniana 62(2012)1-2, p. 153-188
On the first of September 1626 La somme théologique des vérités capitales de la religion chréstienne (1625) of Jesuit François Garasse (1584-1631) was condemned by Sorbonne, after a dispute between the author and Jean Duvergier de Hauranne (1581-1643). Jansenius' friend wrote a confutative work Somme des fautes (1626), composed of three books. However, only the first one was published before the condemnation. Did this book have an influence on this affaire? Which one? These are the questions this essay begins from. In this article there are both a reconstruction of the French polemical context of the Seventeenth Century - whose one of the protagonists was Garasse - and an analysis of the criticism addressed to the modern Pelagian opinion of Garasse in Somme des fautes and in Jansenius' Augustinus (1640).
Indeed this affaire also interests Jansenius. In his Correspondence to Saint-Cyran it appears the expression affaire du Plagiaire in order to refer to the case of Garasse and the events of his writing's condemnation.
The term 'Plagiaire' comes from the work Deffence pour Estienne Pasquier, vivant conseiller du Roy etc. contre les impostures et calomniers de François Garasse, written by his sons and Antoine Rémy against Garasse. After an historical and introductive part, this essay addresses Jansenius' criticism to modern Pelagian Garasse contained in his opus magnum and in his letters. The aim of this work - which is particularly concerned with Augustinus - is to show how the criticism to the Pelagian opinion reveals a polemical target addressed not only to the ancient Pelagians, but to the modern ones too. May be the Lovanist (Jansenius) considered a new 'Augustine'?
key words
Jansenius - Saint-Cyran - Pelagians - Jesuits
Augustiniana 62 (2012), 3-4
- Allan MOWBRAY, Augustine, the semi-Pelagian, Augustiniana 62(2012)3-4, p. 189-249
Pelagius's contributions to the controversy on grace survive only in a fragmentary and incoherent selection, probably chosen by Augustine to support
his caricature "Pelagianism." Thus the letters of Prosper ( ep. 225) and Hilary (ep. 226) are invaluable, for revealing both the coherent doctrine of grace and free will proposed by his "semi-Pelagian" opponents and for their pointing to his own early anti-Manichaean writings, and especially lib. arb., as their source and inspiration. After some attempts to refute this claim, Augustine in fact finally acknowledged his part (in praed. sanct. 3,7-4,8).
Manichaeism of Augustine's time and place was promoted as the true because Pauline Christianity; thus the anti-Manichaean position of Augustine's
reaction never was the naive defense of free will prior to taking account of original sin, as he likes to suggest, but a carefully considered defense of a
minimum of free will in the face of original sin (see lib. arb. III,20,56). By the time of Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas, it had become the main alternative to his anti-Pelagianism, and arguably the only way to reconcile grace and free will. As late as spir. et litt. 33,57 ff. he posed clearly and nearly without bias the fundamental question about the initium gratiae, whether God's universal gift of free will in Creation (as in all version of pelagianism, including his own) or Recreation in Christ (as in his anti-Pelagianism). Only thereafter did he gradually harden his choice of Recreation via Christ's grace to the destruction of free will in the ungraced. His decision to defend his fellow bishops' appeal, in the trial of Caelestius, to infant damnation probably contributed more to this turn than his response, years earlier, to the questions of Simplicianus.
To see that Pelagius was also a follower of Augustine's own semipelagianism requires learning to read Augustine critically. Though that project will require the facing of some unpleasant truths about his polemical methods, beyond them there are rewards. The apparent lack of impartial but forceful critical referees meant that the intellectual quality of the Pelagian controversy was far lower than it should have been. Fortunately, we can make up part of that loss by critical reading. Today we can decide which Augustine we prefer, rather than being obsessed by the question of which is the real Augustine, the "semi-pelagian" or the anti-Pelagian. The real Augustine is he who can be credited for the flourishing of the concept of Christian grace far beyond the narrow bounds of theological controversy.
key words
grace of creation - Lib. arb. III, 20,56 - Spir. et litt. 34,60 - infant damnation - reprobation
- Cornelius MAYER, Augustinus : "Ich will, dass du bist" (?) : zum Problem der angeblich augustinischen Herkunft dieser Sentenz, Augustiniana 62(2012)3-4, p. 251-264
Quotations from Augustine have always been attractive, especially those quotations that help religious people to cope with sorrow and pain, or indeed with any event that might occur in human life. In the recently renovated Augustinian Church at Würzburg, a room has been made into a parlour for people in mourning. It is decorated with a sentence attributed to Augustine : "I want you to be" ("Ich will, dass Du bist"). The present article intends to demonstrate the insufficiency of this sentence to fit in with Augustine's theology and pastoral care.
key words
Der Mensch als Gottes Geschöpf - Christi Heilswerk - christliche Existenz - Erlösung - Liebe
- Philippe TRÉLAT, L'ordre des frères ermites de saint-Augustin en Méditerranée orientale et leur couvent nicosiate (XIIIe-XVIe siècles), Augustiniana 62(2012)3-4, p. 265-290
The history of the presence of the Hermits of Saint Augustine in the eastern Mediterranean and particularly in Cyprus during the medieval period is poorly understood. Yet few mentions in the sources show the birth of the first convent in Acre in 1290 and the location of the prouincia ultramarina's establishments in the 141h c. The Nicosia convent is the best documented house because of its high status and its prosperity. The Lusignan monarchy,
the Italian merchants and the local elites, with strong financial support, intended to receive some spiritual benefit, and wanted to be buried in the
friars' church. The friars developed the influence of their convent (now Omeriyeh Djami) which has served as a repository for relics of saint Nicolas
of Tolentino and saint Spyridon. Additionally, the study of different sources enables one to identify the function and dedication of the north chapel of the
Augustinian church (Saint-Nicolas of Tolentino) that was previously unknown to us.
key words
Middle Ages - Hermits of Saint Augustine (mendicant order) - province of the Holy Land - Nicosia (Cyprus) - Nicolas of Tolentino (saint, 1245? -1305)
- Yilun CAI, The efficacy of grace according to Domingo Bañez, Augustiniana 62(2012)3-4, p. 291-326
The Spanish Dominican theologian Domingo Bafiez, in the controversy with the Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, developed his own theology of efficacious grace. He held a distinction between sufficient grace and efficacious grace. For the latter, the efficacy is solely due to itself, no human consent being required. In this article, we will investigate Bafiez's theology of efficacious grace. We begin by discussing the metaphysical foundation of efficacious grace: God as the exclusive cause of our existence and movement. This metaphysics implies that when we act, God does not work alongside us to produce the effect, but premoves us to act. It is through the principle of divine premotion that Bafiez established his understanding of efficacious grace: a grace granted by God to infallibly move the elected people to convert to Himself. According to this principle, the efficacy of grace arises from God's will, rather than from His foreknowledge of man's response to His calling. Since efficacious grace is granted by God to the elected people, its implication for predestination will be discussed. In the last section of this article, we will explore how Bafiez harmonised efficacious grace with human freedom. For him, grace moves the human will infallibly, but it happens in such a gentle way that grace never impedes human freedom. Bafiez concluded that true human freedom is not indifferent to the good. On the contrary, it is a fruit of grace's work.
key words
Domingo Bañez - efficacious grace - divine premotion - predestination - free will