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Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Was Augustine Roman Catholic? (Part 1)

Scott Windsor has posted three responses to a series of articles I wrote about Augustine and Roman Catholicism. My series is linked here, and Scott's replies are here, here, and here.

He writes:

As noted in my previous response, Robert Eno is not a conservative “scholar” - but even so, all Mr. Engwer has presented above is Eno’s commentary on what St. Augustine has allegedly said or “viewed.” The problem here is we have NOTHING from St. Augustine to substantiate the claims! An unsubstantiated commentary is not a valid argument, and we must begin this series, as we did the last, in rejecting the premise based on a lack of substance....

This piece is more of a review of Eno’s book than a serious commentary on St. Augustine.


I cited an article by Eno, not a book. And the article is documented with more than a hundred notes, including many citations of Augustine and Augustinian scholarship. The article was published in a journal that specializes in the study of Augustine. Eno was (he's dead) a Roman Catholic clergyman and patristic scholar who taught church history at the Catholic University of America and was widely published, including on Augustinian issues. He wasn't conservative on some points, but the same can be said of recent Popes. Scott puts the term scholar in quotation marks, perhaps suggesting that Eno shouldn't be considered a scholar, but he doesn't explain why.

If Scott doesn't want to read the article by Eno that I cited, and he doesn't want to address the documentation Eno provided, that's his choice. But the documentation is there. And even without that documentation, I often quoted Eno's descriptions of events in Augustine's life and references to Augustine's historical context. Either those descriptions and references are correct or they aren't. If Scott thinks they're incorrect, then he needs to explain why. If he doesn't think they're incorrect, then why doesn't he address them? If he's saying that he needs documentation every time Eno refers to anything that occurred in Augustine's life or his surrounding context, then I would, again, ask why. Does Scott expect such documentation from sources that are more in agreement with his position? If a Catholic Answers article tells us that Augustine was bishop of Hippo during a particular year, does Scott expect documentation? Does he expect documentation every time a claim is made about Augustine? I doubt it. It's not as though Robert Eno was a high school student working as a cashier at McDonald's, writing blog posts about Augustine in his off hours. He was a patristic scholar writing an article for an Augustinian journal. We can safely expect him to know a lot about Augustine and to be at least largely accurate in what he tells us. For Scott to ignore so much of what I cited from Eno, and to do so with comments like what I've quoted above, leaves a lot to be desired.

But I did go on to cite and discuss some passages from Augustine. I didn't just quote Eno. As we'll see, Scott didn't have much to say in response to what I cited from Augustine. And he often made claims about Augustine and his historical context without offering any documentation, despite his objections to a lack of documentation from Eno.

In my series on Augustine, I sometimes linked to my own past articles on relevant subjects. Despite his claim that he wants more documentation, Scott ignored the past articles I linked. For example, he comments:

Let us ask, quickly though, how did we arrive at the Canon of Scripture, if not through Church councils over the first 400 years determining which books would be accepted as canonical, and which would be rejected from the canon?


I've answered that question in a series on the canon here. See here especially, where I document that disagreements over the canon continued long after the councils of the fourth century. Contrast my documentation to the lack of documentation in Scott's comments above.

Here's an example of the sort of shallow treatment of Augustine we get from Scott:

And STILL no quotes or substance, but how about I provide one for Mr. Engwer here to support what Mr. Eno said...

"I should not believe the Gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church."
(St. Augustine, Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental, 5,6)

Let the objective reader consider where St. Augustine’s priority is here.


He makes no attempt to explain the alleged significance of that one sentence he's quoted. He just quotes it and lets the reader "consider" it. Eno addresses the passage in the article I cited, and other scholars who disagree with Scott's view of Augustine have addressed it many times. He gives us no reason to prefer his own reading over theirs.

At one point, Scott refers to how something in Augustine that was discussed by Eno seems "more of an argument for Catholicism than against it". If Augustine appealed to tradition, church councils, or other concepts vaguely similar to what Roman Catholics believe, Scott acts as if such vague similarity is sufficient. But my series wasn't about whether Augustine was "more for Roman Catholicism than against it". Rather, it was about whether he was Roman Catholic. A non-Catholic can agree with Catholicism more than he disagrees with it. Eastern Orthodox, Copts, Evangelicals, Anglicans, and other groups agree with Catholicism more than they disagree with it, but we don't therefore consider them Catholic.

28 comments:

  1. One major point here, St. Augustine (named a Saint and Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church BY the Roman Catholic Church) was not just a Catholic, he was a priest and bishop in the Catholic Faith! He celebrated the Sacrifice of the Mass and supports all the Sacraments of the Catholic Faith. And when it comes to the papacy, yes he had his disagreements - but in the end he did not deny the position of the Bishop of Rome. The accurate paraphrase "roma locuta est, causa finita est" (from Sermon 131.10) is a good example of this. Was St. Augustine a Roman Catholic? Yes, he was.

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  2. Well said Mr. Windsor. At the risk of being called erudite and sophisticated, I would have to agree with your answer to question of Augustine's Roman Catholic credentials.

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  3. Scott offers no evidence for most of what he claims above. Neither does John. They also ignore what I've documented to the contrary of their position in this present series of posts and in my earlier series on Augustine, for example.

    What about Augustine's Sermon 131? Neither Scott nor John makes any effort to explain how the passage supposedly leads to their conclusion, nor do they interact with the other side of the dispute over that passage. They just assume their own reading. Scott and John could begin by interacting with what Roman Catholic scholars have said about the passage, such as Klaus Schatz, Papal Primacy (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996), p. 34.

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  4. Klaus Schatz? Why not Hans Kung, Richard Benett, or Jimmy Swaggart for that matter. The conclusion that Augustine is Catholic does not depend on the views of any of the above. One can find any number of folks to support the idea that Augustine was not Catholic or pick and choose from the saint's writings to come to that conclusion. I think your problem is you love your conclusion more than the obvious evidence to the contrary.

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  5. As long as we are picking and choosing our Augustine writings:

    Augustine
    “If all men throughout the world were such as you most vainly accuse them of having been, what has the chair of the Roman church done to you, in which Peter sat, and in which Anastasius sits today?” (Against the Letters of Petilani 2:118 [A.D. 402]).

    “If the very order of episcopal succession is to be considered, how much more surely, truly, and safely do we number them from Peter himself, to whom, as to one representing the whole Church, the Lord said, ‘Upon this rock I will build my Church’ . . . [Matt. 16:18]. Peter was succeeded by Linus, Linus by Clement, Clement by Anacletus, Anacletus by Evaristus . . . ” (Letters 53:1:2 [A.D. 412]).

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  6. John said:
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    Klaus Schatz? Why not Hans Kung, Richard Benett, or Jimmy Swaggart for that matter. The conclusion that Augustine is Catholic does not depend on the views of any of the above. One can find any number of folks to support the idea that Augustine was not Catholic or pick and choose from the saint's writings to come to that conclusion.
    ---

    Good thing God gave us you instead of "any number of folks" to put us on the straight and narrow.

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  7. @Peter.
    Thank you. I think perhaps you give me more credit than I deserve, but I appreciate your comment. Perhaps you could offer comments more in keeping with the debate regarding Augustine's Catholicism, as that is what is at issue.

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  8. John said:
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    Perhaps you could offer comments more in keeping with the debate regarding Augustine's Catholicism, as that is what is at issue.
    ---

    My answer to you was simply following the advice of Proverbs 26:5. It had just as much to do with Augustine as your comments have to date.

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  9. John,

    If you can't discern the difference between Jimmy Swaggart and a Roman Catholic scholar who's taught church history at a Roman Catholic university, then you're too incompetent to be participating in discussions like this one. And I'm still waiting for your documentation that Schatz is an equivalent of Kung and an explanation of how that fact supposedly undermines my argument.

    The Augustine quotes you lifted from a Catholic web site have already been addressed. Robert Eno addresses Petrine and Roman primacy in Augustine in his article I cited. I addressed the subject in my initial series on Augustine linked above. See, also, my comments in a recent thread on Petrine succession here. Your misuse of those Augustine quotes tells us a lot about where you're coming from.

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  10. Jason,
    The point of my comment,which you apparently missed, was that with enough digging one can find any number of persons, Catholic or otherwise to support your position.

    The source of the Augustine quotes should not be the issue. The issue is whether those quotes support the notion of Augustine's Roman Catholicism. Nothing I have read that is related to Part 1 or Part 2 on this subject convinces me that Augustine was anything other than Roman Catholic.

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  11. John,

    The fact that people with differing views exist doesn't make their credibility or the credibility of their positions equivalent. Klaus Schatz has credentials that somebody like Jimmy Swaggart doesn't have. And I didn't just appeal to the credibility of Schatz as an individual. I cited his argumentation.

    The source of your Augustine quotes has significance if it reflects the credibility of your arguments and how much the readers should trust your judgment or make an effort to interact with you, for example. It does have some relevance.

    Telling us that nothing I've said convinces you that Augustine wasn't Roman Catholic doesn't provide us with an argument, much less a convincing one. It just tells us what you believe. And we already knew that. I've been providing arguments while you've been providing assumptions and assertions.

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  12. Jason,
    Let me try this again. The point I am making is not an attack on Mr. Shatz. The point is that for Every Shatz one can find another equally qualified scholar with a different point of view.

    The attack on the source of the quotes I sited was indeed from a Catholic site as one does not usually find such quotes on sites not sympathetic to the Catholic viewpoint.
    Perhaps I missed it, but I have yet to find on your site where you have specifically addressed those specific quotes. I believe they are indicative of Augustine's thinking regarding his Roman Catholicism.

    Saying that my not being convinced of your view is not argument. I never claimed that statement as an argument. As you have already stated I may be "too incompetent to be participating in discussions like this one."

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  13. Jason,

    Just a last few comments before I leave your blog for awhile.
    I feel it is necessary to address you regarding my lifting of quotes. I am not sure how that is a crime considering your blog is rightly consists of lifted quotes. That is what one does to support a particular position and no crime should be construed from so doing.
    Additionally, since my competency has been called into question, it seems fair that I should give a bit of my own background. After doing graduate work in religious studies at the University of Washington, specializing in early Christianity and assisting in translating Sahidic documents into English , I passed on an opportunity to accept a doctoral fellowship at the Harvard Divinity School to accept a commission as an officer in the United States Navy to become a naval aviator, something I remain very proud of today, though not missing landings on pitching flight decks and months at sea away from my family. I am not sure that makes me competent to comment on your blog in your mind, but I am satisfied in my competence, but then we naval aviators tend to be a rather cocky and self assured group. I have not called into question your own competency, nor would I, not knowing anything of your particular academic background.

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  14. John write:

    "The point is that for Every Shatz one can find another equally qualified scholar with a different point of view."

    Your point has changed, then. You referred to Jimmy Swaggart earlier. He's not an "equally qualified scholar".

    And as I explained to you in my last post, I didn't just appeal to Schatz's credentials as a scholar. I cited an argument he made.

    I also noted that he's a Catholic from a Catholic university. Since Catholics say so much about unity, authority, and the dangers of relying on personal judgment, it's significant when Catholics like you disagree with Catholic scholars who have a higher standing in the church than you do and know more about the subject under consideration than you do. People like you and Scott Windsor keep relying on your personal judgment to criticize and distance yourselves from Catholic scholars who have a higher standing within Catholicism. Then there's your denomination's ongoing failure to discipline its own leaders and scholars. Instead, the people who do what's being criticized by individuals like you and Scott are often promoted. They're given an even larger platform from which to promote what you, in your private judgment, consider erroneous. Earlier, I cited the example of some liberal positions taken by recent Popes. I want people to keep such things in mind as they listen to Catholics telling us about unity, authority, private judgment, two thousand years of tradition, etc.

    (continued below)

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  15. (continued from above)

    You write:

    "The attack on the source of the quotes I sited was indeed from a Catholic site as one does not usually find such quotes on sites not sympathetic to the Catholic viewpoint."

    Quotes don't have to come from a web site. If you would read more of Augustine himself, instead of getting quotes of him from a Catholic site (and probably a largely unreliable one), and if you'd read other more credible sources, it would help. What we often get in online forums is one highly ignorant Catholic quoting another highly ignorant Catholic, without either one knowing much about what they're quoting or the larger subject they're addressing.

    You write:

    "Perhaps I missed it, but I have yet to find on your site where you have specifically addressed those specific quotes."

    As if you've "specifically addressed" the material I posted first.

    You haven't even explained how your two quotes allegedly lead to your conclusion about Augustine. You expect me to exegete passages that you yourself cited, which you haven't even exegeted yourself. Neither of the passages you've cited even defines the significance of sitting on the chair of Peter, so the only way you can arrive at a Roman Catholic interpretation is by reading assumptions into the text. Both of your quotes are so vague that anybody from an anti-papal father like Cyprian to an Eastern Orthodox, Copt, or Anglican, for example, could affirm them. The fact that you think those quotes are evidence of belief in a papacy suggests that you don't know much about the subject under discussion.

    As I said earlier, Robert Eno addresses Petrine and Roman primacy in Augustine in the article I cited, I've quoted some of his comments on the subject, and I've cited J.N.D. Kelly and Klaus Schatz discussing some of the relevant material.

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  16. John wrote:

    "After doing graduate work in religious studies at the University of Washington, specializing in early Christianity and assisting in translating Sahidic documents into English , I passed on an opportunity to accept a doctoral fellowship at the Harvard Divinity School to accept a commission as an officer in the United States Navy to become a naval aviator, something I remain very proud of today, though not missing landings on pitching flight decks and months at sea away from my family."

    Since I've primarily criticized your behavior and arguments, telling us about your background doesn't have much relevance. Men like Robert Eno and Klaus Schatz have credentials that are more relevant than yours in this context, and you've dismissed what they've said with comments like "Was Augustine Roman Catholic? Yup. No doubt about it." There hasn't been much substance to your posts, and citing your background in translating Sahidic or serving in the Navy, for example, doesn't change that fact.

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  17. “If all men throughout the world were such as you most vainly accuse them of having been, what has the chair of the Roman church done to you, in which Peter sat, and in which Anastasius sits today?” (Against the Letters of Petilani 2:118 [A.D. 402]).

    John, this quote tells us nothing except that Augustine believed that that Anastasius "sits" in Peter's chair. That doesn't tell us anything about what is meant by Peter's chair, such as whether he is over all the church, whether he is infallible or not, etc. It really tells us nothing.

    “If the very order of episcopal succession is to be considered, how much more surely, truly, and safely do we number them from Peter himself, to whom, as to one representing the whole Church, the Lord said, ‘Upon this rock I will build my Church’ . . . [Matt. 16:18]. Peter was succeeded by Linus, Linus by Clement, Clement by Anacletus, Anacletus by Evaristus . . . ”

    Again, what does this tell us other than Peter represented the whole church when Christ addressed him. In fact, I could read that to mean a lot less than a papacy since it says Peter is being spoken to by Christ as a representative of the church (meaning in place of) rather than as a "pope".

    The point is you gave these quotes as if they proved anything, and they don't. And you made no effort to explain them in any way showing that they support what you believe.

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  18. Jason,
    You have left me with a lot to respond to in your last few comments. Before I do, I have one question. Since you have implied that I may just be another ignorant Catholic commenting on your blog, in spite of my giving you some of my academic background, what in fact is your academic background?

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  19. John,

    You ask that question after ignoring so much of what I and others have asked you and what we've written in response to your claims. You keep expecting us to address whatever issues you want to raise while you often ignore what we've brought up. Why should I answer your question?

    I have a bachelor's degree in English. That doesn't tell anybody whether I understand something like Augustine's view of the bishop of Rome. Similarly, your "doing graduate work in religious studies", "translating Sahidic documents into English", and serving in the Navy don't tell us how much you know about Augustine. What's more relevant is what each of us has said in contexts like this discussion. There are significant differences in the arguments we've used and the sources we've cited, for example. I'm not the only one who's noticed the contrast. Read what other people have written in response to your posts. Read what your own denomination's scholars have written about Augustine. The quotes you posted from him are so vague that they raise the issue of whether you even understand some of the most basic issues involved in this discussion. How does your time doing graduate work in religious studies, translating Sahidic, or serving in the Navy change that fact?

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  20. Jason,
    Thank you for your response. I suspected as much. I suggest you pursue an academic degree in the field in which you seem most interested. Perhaps even read a little more Augustine before you presume to imply the ignorance of others,otherwise someone may come to the false conclusion that you are just another ignorant protestant posting on blog. It is what I did and continue to do even now.

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  21. John,

    You just ignored most of what I said, much as you've done with my comments on Augustine. Again, why is your experience in "religious studies" or "translating Sahidic documents into English" supposed to give you credibility that your posts in this discussion suggest you don't have? Should we also assume that you're knowledgeable about seventeenth-century Buddhism or the history of polygamy in Mormonism, for example, due to your experience with religious studies and translating Sahidic? Should we assume that you're knowledgeable about every issue related to religion, even when your own comments suggest otherwise?

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  22. John writes:

    Jason,
    Thank you for your response. I suspected as much. I suggest you pursue an academic degree in the field in which you seem most interested. Perhaps even read a little more Augustine before you presume to imply the ignorance of others,otherwise someone may come to the false conclusion that you are just another ignorant protestant posting on blog. It is what I did and continue to do even now.


    In other words, you can't defend your empty assertions. All you have left is pride manifesting itself in disdain.

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  23. John's reply is breathtaking. It boils down to: "You've obviously read more and wider than I have, so... neener neener, you're dumb, you need to study more, because you don't agree with my (ignorant) opinions."

    Welcome to Rome. "Park your brain right there (in the waste bin)."

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  24. Jason,
    For the record, as I stated previously my academic background is in early Christianity. I do in fact have a great deal of familiarity with the works of Augustine in spite of your assumption to the contrary. I never implied that my naval background had any relationship to theology. Because of your insulting ignorant Catholic comment I choose not to comment further.

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  25. JOHN SAID:

    "Because of your insulting ignorant Catholic comment I choose not to comment further."

    What a loss! How will we survive such an irreparable deprivation?

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  26. John wrote:

    "For the record, as I stated previously my academic background is in early Christianity. I do in fact have a great deal of familiarity with the works of Augustine in spite of your assumption to the contrary."

    Your "great deal of familiarity" led you to go to a Catholic web site to get some quotes from Augustine that you misunderstood and proceeded to misuse. Your "great deal of familiarity" has led you to write so many posts with so little substance.

    You write:

    "Because of your insulting ignorant Catholic comment I choose not to comment further."

    Then why did you continue posting, repeatedly, after I said it? Could you blame readers for thinking you probably have some other reason for leaving?

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  27. "Perhaps I missed it, but I have yet to find on your site where you have specifically addressed those specific quotes."

    John, I have addressed your quotes. Why have you not responded to me?

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  28. Steve said:
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    What a loss! How will we survive such an irreparable deprivation?
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    Careful, Steve. John will think you're serious! He is, after all, a scholar...

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