'Knowing as we are known' in confessions 10 and other philosophical, Augustinian and Christian obedience to the Delphic Gnothi Seauton from socrates to modernity

Augustinian Studies

Volumn 34, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 23-48

  Hankey, Wayne J ^a  

^a DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

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EID: 61449331628     PISSN: 00945323     EISSN: 21537917     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/augstudies20033413     Document Type: Article

References (121)

1. Jean Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. H. Beveridge (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), book 1, chap. 1, vol. 1, 37-39.
2. See Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1. 1. 7; 1.2, prol., 1.50, prol.
3. and W. J. Hankey, God in Himself, Aquinas' Doctrine of God as Expounded in the Summa Theologiae, Oxford Theological Monographs/Oxford Scholarly Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987/2000), 19-35.
4. René Descartes, Meditations on the First Philosophy, trans. Haldane and Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), Meditation 3, vol. 1, 166.
5. Bossuet, Connoissance de Dieu et de Soi-Même, in Oeuvres de Bossuet, Evéque de Meaux, tome 34 (Versailles: J. A. Lebel, 1818), 63.
6. See Z. Janowski, Index Augustino-Cartesien: Textes et Commentaire, Histoire de la philosophie (Paris: Vrin, 2000), there are comparisons of Descartes and Augustine at 22-23, 56-67, 82-95
7. idem, Cartesian Theodicy. Descartes' Quest for Certitude, International Archives of the History of Ideas 168 (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000), see 90-101, 121-130, 141-149.
8. On Plotinus, Augustine, and Descartes in this regard see Stephen Menn, Descartes and Augustine, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
9. Proslogion (Schmitt, Opera Omnia, vol. 1), prooemium, 93, lines 6-10.
10. See Andre-Jean Festugiere, Personal Religion among the Greeks, Sather Classical Lectures 26 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954), 21.
11. Proslogion prooemium, 94, line 7.
12. See Michael Cameron, Enarrationes in Psalmos, in Saint Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 290-296 at 291-293.
13. Marilyn McCord Adams, "Romancing the Good: God and the Self according to St. Anselm of Canterbury", The Augustinian Tradition, ed. Gareth Matthews (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 91-109 at 102.
14. Her analysis of the interchange accords with mine in "Secundum rei vim vel secundum cognoscentium facultatem: Knower and Known in the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius and the Proslogion of Anselm", Medieval Philosophy and the Classical Tradition in Islam, Judaism and Christianity, ed. John Inglis (Richmond [England]: Curzon Press, 2002) 126-150 at 134-140 except that she rightly adds love to its structure.
15. Proslogion c. i, 100;
16. see Augustinus, De Trinitate (Mountain et Glorie, CCL 50), 14. 8. 11, 436, 14-16, and 14.12.16.
17. Proslogion c. xxvi, 120: Deus meus⋯ die animae meae⋯ petite et accipietis⋯
18. See W. J. Hankey, "Dionysius becomes an Augustinian. Bonaventure's Itinerarium vi", Studia Patristica, vol. 29, ed. E. A. Livingstone (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 252-59 at 256-259.
19. Bonaventure, Itinerarium mentis in Deum, text and translation Philotheus Boehner (Franciscan Institute, 1956), c. 3, 62.
20. Augustine, Confessiones, Pierre de Labriolle, ed. (Paris: Les Belles lettres, 1947), 10. 1. 1: Cognoscam te, cognitor meus, cognoscam, sicut et cognitus sum.
21. J. J. O'Donnell, Confessions III, Commentary on Books 8-13 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 154.
22. In his Augustine's Invention of the Inner Self. The Legacy of a Christian Platonist (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 35-44, Phillip Cary makes a false opposition between Augustine and Plotinus on this twofold movement; regrettably the opposition is essential to his central argument.
23. Confessiones 10. 6. 9 and 10.6.10.
24. On the "touching" of the truth in Plato, Symposium 212a
25. see Festugière, Personal Religion, 44.
26. Compare Confessiones 1. 2. 2 and Proslogion chapter 1; the paradox in Book 10 is at 10.17.26-10.18.27. I am grateful to Dr Ian Stewart for helping me work out this feature of the Confessions.
27. Compare Augustine, De Trinitate 12. 15. 24 with Trusculan Disputations 1.57;
28. texts are given in Phillip Cary, Augustine's Invention, 16 and 133.
29. Cary, Augustine's Invention, 14, he notes that in stating the doctrine of recollection "Plato often uses a distinctive verb (en-einai) which means literally 'to be in. '"
30. Plato, Respublica II, 366 e6-7, where we have "enon"
31. O'Donnell, Confessions III, 151.
32. Descartes, Meditations, Meditation 1 and following
33. Plato, Respublica, 3, 382-383.
34. Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 180, note 1.
35. See Pierre Courcelle, Connais-toi toi-même de Socrate à S. Bernard, 3 vols. (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1974-75), 1:137, note 109.
36. Courcelle, Connais-toi, 125-163.
37. Augustine, Soliloquiorum, ed. St. Maur (Paris: Gaume Fratres, 1836), 1. 1. 4: "qui fecisti hominem ad imaginem et similtudinem tuam, quod qui se ipse novit agnoscit"
38. On this in respect to the Gnothi seauton, see James K. A. Smith, "Confessions of an Existentialist: Reading Augustine After Heidegger", New Blackfriars 82(2001):273-282 at 275, and 335-347.
39. Soliloquiorum 1. 2. 7: "A. Deum et animam scire cupio. R. Nihilne plus? A. Nihil omnino"
40. See De Ordine, 2. 18. 47.
41. Confessiones 4. 12. 18.
42. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, ed., St. Maur (Paris: Gaume Fratres, 1835), LXX, sermo 1, 14.
43. Augustine, De Trinitate, 2. 16. 27;
44. Dermot Moran, "Idealism in Medieval Philosophy: The Case of Johannes Scottus Eriugena", Medieval Philosophy and Theology 8(1999):53-82 at 63;
45. see W. J. Hankey, "Self-knowledge and God as Other in Augustine: Problems for a Postmodern Retrieval", Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittalter 4(1999):83-123 at 112-122.
46. See W. J. Hankey, "Mind (mens)", Saint Augustine through the Ages, 563-67 at 564.
47. See Roland Teske, "Saint Augustine as Philosopher: The Birth of Christian Metaphysics", Augustinian Studies 23(1992):7-32 at 20
48. and Hankey, "Secundum rei vim", 127-134.
49. For how Proclus accomplishes the same, see D. G. MacIsaac, "Projection and Time in Proclus", Medieval Philosophy and the Classical Tradition in Islam, Judaism and Christianity, ed. John Inglis, 83-105 at 88.
50. For such representations of Plato and Socrates see M. L. McPherran, The Religion of Socrates (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania University Press, 1996), 5-12.
51. I prescind from the consideration of the relation between this representation and Socrates himself; on the problematic, see Louis-André Dorion, "A l'origine de la question socratique et de la critique du témoignage de Xénophon: l'étude de Schleiermacher sur Socrate (1815)", Dionysius 19(2001):51-74
52. See M. Montuori, "The Oracle Given to Chaerephon on the Wisdom of Socrates. An Invention by Plato", Kernos 3(1990):251-259 at 256;
53. "it is purely and simply an invention by Plato", Dorion accepts Montuori's conclusions.
54. On Chaerephon see McPherran, The Religion, 214-220.
55. Notice that at Phaedrus 229e, Socrates directly takes the Delphic command as binding on himself.
56. In avoiding the "demon", which is the usual way of speaking of what Socrates encountered, I follow Louis-André Dorion, "Socrate, le daimonion et la divination", Les dieux de Platon, Actes du colloque international de Caen (24-26 janvier 2002), ed. J. Laurent (Caen: Presses Universitaires de Caen, forthcoming) showing the demon to derive from Plutarch, Apulius, Maximus of Tyre and Proclus. For Plato and Xenophon, Socrates encounters no intermediate being but the divine itself by way of a voice or sign.
57. On the daimonic warning away from politics in the Republic in comparison with that in the Apology, see Leroux's note in Platon, La République, traduction inédite, introduction et notes par Georges Leroux (Paris: GF Flammarion, 2002), 661-662.
58. On the differences and the reason for them, see Louis-André Dorion, in Xénophon, Mémorables (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2000), notes complémentaires, 50-56.
59. W. K. C. Guthrie, Socrates (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 84. Xenophon tries to assimilate Socrates' privileged divine sign to divinations generally (Dorion, in Mémorables, 51-53)
60. Plato represents it as peculiar at Respublica VI, 496c, and the consequent danger to Socrates in claiming it at Euthyphro 3b-c
61. Perhaps best on this Socratic revolution, because it makes the continuities with earlier Greek religion clear and depends on no judgment about what is Socratic and what Platonic, is Festugière, Personal, 39 and passim.
62. Jaroslav Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism, Gifford Lectures at Aberdeen, 1992-1993 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), 3.
63. On the mutuality of the exchanges see Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1990).
64. On apatheia as Christian theological presupposition, see Pelikan, Christianity, 86-87, 188-189;
65. Leroux refers us also to Timaeus 29e, 44c-45e, 68c and to Laws 889d-900e.
66. See W. J. Hankey, "Canon Law", The Study of Anglicanism, ed. S. W. Sykes and J. E. Booty (London and Philadelphia: SPCK/Fortress Press, 1988), 200-215 at 209-212.
67. See W. J. Hankey, "Aquinas, Pseudo-Denys, Proclus and Isaiah VI.6", Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 64(1997):59-93.
68. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1. 2.
69. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 10. 7.
70. See Plato, Alcibiades, ed. Nicholas Denyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 14-26
71. and Platon, Alcibiade, présentation par J.-F. Pradeau (Paris: GF Flammarion, 1999), 22-29 and 219-220.
72. H. J. Blumenthal, Aristotle and Neoplatonism in late Antiquity. Interpretation of the De Anima (London: Duckworth, 1996), 3;
73. Ham in Plotin, Traité 49 (V.3)
74. Introduction, traduction, commentaire et notes par Bertrand Ham, Les Écrits de Plotin (Paris: Cerf, 2000), 15-20;
75. Courcelle, Connais-toi, vol. 1, 14-15.
76. Ham in Plotin, Traité 49, 17.
77. See Dominic J. O'Meara, Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 18-20;
78. Kevin Corrigan, "L'auto-réflexivité et l'expérience humaine dans l'Ennéade V, 3 [49], et autres traités: de Plotin à Thomas d'Aquin", Etudes sur Plotin, éd. M. Fattal (Paris and Montreal: L'Harmattan, 2000), 149-172
79. Ham's introduction in Plotin, Traité 49 (V.3)
80. and W. J. Hankey, "Between and Beyond Augustine and Descartes: More than a Source of the Self", Augustinian Studies 32:1(2001):65-88 at 75-88.
81. For a survey of the Gnothi seauton in late antiquity that involves such comparisons, see Henry Chadwick, "Philosophical Tradition and the Self", Late Antiquity. A Guide to the Postclassical World, ed. G. W. Bowersock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 60-81.
82. See Luc Brisson in Philosophie grecque, 626, 632, 635, 689, 761;
83. Denyer in Alcibiades, 14;
84. and above all, Proclus, Sur le Premier Alcibiade de Platon, texte établi et traduit par A. Ph. Segonds, tome 1 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1985), x-civ.
85. See Hankey, "Between and Beyond", 82-87.
86. Plotinus himself may have been conscious of his unorthodoxy, see Blumenthal, Aristotle and Neoplatonism, 18;
87. H. D. Saffrey, Le Néoplatonisme après Plotin, Histoire des doctrines de l'antiquité classique 24 (Paris: Vrin, 2000), viii;
88. G. Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul: the Neoplatonism of lamblichus (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania University Press, 1996), 4-17
89. and R. M. Van den Berg, "Towards the Paternal Harbour: Proclean Theurgy and the Contemplation of the Forms", Proclus et la Théologie Platonicienne. Actes du Colloque International de Louvain (13-16 mai 1998)
90. en l'honneur de H. D. Saffrey et L. G. Westerink, éd. A. Ph. Segonds et C. Steel, Ancient and Medieval Philosophy De Wulf-Mansion Centre Series 1, 26 (Leuven and Paris: Leuven University Press and Les Belles Lettres, 2000), 425-442 at 425-26.
91. For a treatment of the differences between Iamblichus and his Neoplatonic predecessors, see D. P. Taormina, Jamblique critique de Plotin et de Porphyre: quatre études, Tradition de la pensée classique (Paris: Vrin, 1999).
92. G. Shaw, "The Geometry of Grace. A Pythagorean Approach to Theurgy", The Divine Iamblichus. Philosopher and Man of Gods, ed. H. J. Blumental and E. G. Clark (London: Duckworth, 1993), 118.
93. Jamblique, Les mystères d'Egypte, éd. Édouard des Places (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1966), I. 11. 38, p. 60, lines 1-9; I.12.41, p. 62, lines 4-11 and V.15.219, p. 169, line1-p. 170, line 19;
94. see G. Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 51-7, 108-10.
95. Proclus, Elements of Theology, prop. 211.
96. MacIsaac, "Projection and Time in Proclus", 96.
97. See J. Milbank, "Sacred Triads: Augustine and the Indo-European Soul", Modern Theology 13(1997):451-474 at 465;
98. Smith, "Confessions of an Existentialist", passim;
99. Denys Turner, The Darkness of God. Negativity in Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 69.
100. J. J. O'Cleary, "The Role of Mathematics in Proclus' Theology", Proclus et la Théologie Platonicienne, 65-90 at 75-76.
101. For what the Pseudo-Dionysius did with this, see Istvan Perczel, "Pseudo-Dionysius and the Platonic Theology. A Preliminary Study", Proclus et la Théologie Platonicienne, 491-532 at 520.
102. Chadwick, "Philosophical Tradition", 72-73 gives an outline of the In Alcibiades.
103. This is exactly what Milbank attributes to Augustine; see J. Milbank, "Intensities", Modern Theology 15:4(October 1999):497, note 142.
104. Proclus, in Alcibiades, prooemium 9, lines 1-7 (Segonds, 7).
105. O'Cleary, "The Role", 88.
106. J. Bussanich, "Mystical Theology and Spiritual Experience in Proclus' Platonic Theology", Proclus et la Théologie Platonicienne, 291-310 at 306 refuses to isolate "ecstatic states and visionary experiences" from "the entire way of life pursued by the Neoplatonic mystic"
107. See Ham's comments at Plotin, Traité 49, 274.
108. Ph. Hoffmann, "La triade Chaldaïque epoç, alröeia, ftiaxiç de Proclus à Simplicius", Proclus et la Théologie Platonicienne, 459-489 at 469.
109. See W. J. Hankey, "Why Philosophy Abides for Aquinas", The Heythrop Journal 42:3(2001):329-348.
110. On the difference and unity of philosophy, theology, and theurgy for Iamblichus, and on the passivity of Nous in union, see Taormina, Jamblique critique de Plotin, 133-158.
111. D. J. O'Meara, "La science métaphysique (ou théologie) de Proclus comme exercice spirituel", Proclus et la Théologie Platonicienne, 279-290 at 289.
112. O'Meara, "La science métaphysique", 290.
113. Brian Stock, "'Intelligo me esse': Eriugena's 'cogito'", Jean Scot Erigène et l'histoire de la philosophie, éd. R. Roques (Paris: C. N. R. S., 1977), 330;
114. Eriugena, De Divisione Naturae I. 48 PL 490B;
115. and W. J. Hankey, "The Postmodern Retrieval of Neoplatonism in Jean-Luc Marion and John Milbank and the Origins of Western Subjectivity in Augustine and Eriugena", Hermathena 165(Winter, 1998):9-70 at 66.
116. De Divisione Naturae IV. 7 PL 770B.
117. Michael Harrington, "Unusquisque in suo sensu abundet: Human Perspective in Eriugena's Periphyseon", Dionysius 16(1998):123-139, esp. 130-138.
118. Moran, "Idealism in Medieval Philosophy", 70.
119. Houston Smit, "Aquinas's Abstractionism", Medieval Philosophy and Theology 10(2001):85-118 at 118.
120. A. N. Williams, The Ground of Union. Deification in Aquinas and Palamas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 168
121. and idem, "Mystical Theology Redux: The Pattern of Aquinas' Summa Theologiae", Modern Theology 12(1997):53-74.