Das Grab ist recht eigentlich ein religiöser BegriffâNur die Religion und ihre Bekenner liegen in Gräbern.
novalis
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Religion geht über Leichen.
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1 The Dead Body and Its Proper Space in Philosophy and the Study of Religion2
The reintroduction of the body into the process of philosophizing is an ever-popular enterprise. At least for the last 250 years, the accusation that scholars have forgotten the significance of the body is an all-time classic of philosophical criticism in both (mere) rational and idealistic thinking.3 The fixation upon death as a key feature of existentialism, with its roots in Montaigne and Pascal, is a fundamental characteristic of much modern philosophyâand has been ever since the Great War.
In religious studies, the boom in studies of the body has been equally long-lasting. Cases and analyses of embodiment in religious traditions already fill libraries, and undoubtedly, more are coming. Likewise, the question of death is often placed at the very center of considerations on the emergence of religious ideas and practices, being the most persistent occasion for religious contingency management (Kontingenzbewältigung) and for the introduction of the transcendence/immanence distinction.4 As Malinowski famously wrote: âOf all the sources of religion, the supreme and final crisis of lifeâdeathâis of the greatest importance.â5 Here, Thomas Tweed claims for the dynamic spatiality of death: â[â¦] all religions propose that death is not a barrier but a transition. Not only do religions both enable and constrain terrestrial and corporeal crossings, but they also permit and restrict other sorts of crossings.â6
By combining these most interesting elements, one might expect philosophy and religious studies to be haunted by corpses as well as ghosts.7 Yet the dead body and the problems of how to handle it analytically have received far less attention than spectral beings. Nevertheless, interesting questions emerge: what is embodied in the dead body?
Moreover, if someone deals with it in a philosophically or theologically reflected way, the author is likely to be accused of occultism. Even upright authors like Augustine are open to such claims. His relevant text, De cura pro mortuis gerenda, âOn the care of the deadâ, is mentioned in classic literary works of the supernatural like J. Sheridan LeFanuâs Carmilla.8 LeFanuâs editor M. R. James, a scholar in the history of religions himself, referred to Augustineâs work in his story Martinâs Close, here as âa favourite book of reference with the old writers of the supernatural.9 What is significant in these contexts is that both stories, as tales of female vampires, deal with the relevance of deceased
persons for the living, appearing as dead bodies in contexts from which they are, by definition, excluded.10 Could it the same be true for the examination of âlivedâ religion?
How dead bodies may trouble or even haunt the living and how to prevent them from doing so is a key question in the religious fieldâsomething that Augustine, as a careful object language author, did not omit. On the contrary, his writings represent a particular new concern for the body as the body becomes the focus of discussion.11 In religion, the problem of the dead body cannot be simply buried. The process of disposing of the dead has resulted in an abundant variety of conceptions, regulations, and ritual practices among the religious communities, including entombing, mummifying, dismembering, embalming, cremating, burying, and even consuming the bodies or feeding them to vultures. The reverence for relics is simply the most significant example of a religious way of dealing with dead bodies, or at least with parts of them.12 However, there are more normal individuals that must be buried than there are religious heroes, and it is the ânormalâ peopleâs space after their death that should attract further conceptual consideration and practical elaboration for both religious object language authors and scholars alike. Therefore, if two sets of such death-related conceptions, regulations, and ritual practices meet in a situation of contact, profound disagreement on the proper methods for handling the dead is likely to emerge. With such disagreements, the possibility to compare emerges.13
The answers formulated to the question of how to deal with the dead bodies are strongly related to the way the body is described and interpreted. The corpse is a disturbing figure, but one that can be dealt with in different and often contestable and contested ways. Especially intriguing is the question of space, for the dead body might be described as a space characterized by loss or non-presence, something that is difficult to handle as objective presence.
Spacing the corpse, therefore, can be considered an important religious practice that gains its meaningful significance through contestation over the question of how to do it properly. âReligion is the quest, within the bounds of the human, historical condition, for the power to manipulate and negotiate ones âsituationâ so as to have âspaceâ in which to meaningfully dwell.â14 The definition of âproperâ, therefore, relies on religious ideas as well as the specific description of the object in question. It is not merely the disposition of the body but the re-location of it in the semiosphere of a religious context.
The question for the dead body, thus, hints toward the topic of space in general.15 Jonathan Z. Smith, in his collection of essays, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual, famously argued that place is a product of human thought and placing a matter of human practice, not least with regard to the human body: âIt is the relationship to the human body, and our experience of it, that orients us in space, that confers meaning to place. Human beings are not placed, they bring place into being.â16 Accordingly, with regard to practices of the religious field, human beings, or rather, bodies, bring a certain place into being when their body (corpse) is religiously âspacedâ. The final space of the dead body is, thus, where religious tradition meets the bodies of the religious, where narrative touches them, where memory becomes religious, where individuality gives its energy and interests to religious stories in order that the model form stories into which the individual inscribes may enter into daily life to be remembered, or re-cast.17
Moreover, following the core idea of the KHK that religion is all about contact, the particular space of the dead body is a node of interaction. As such, it is a dynamic point of confluence where religious traditions meet, interact, and mutually influence each other, especially when it comes to questions of how to space the body, the grave, and the body within the grave properly.18 Early Christianity, among other faiths, displayed a considerable affinity to the tomb as a suitable space of residence.19 Mark Johnson, writing on the supposed pagan-Christian conflict of fourth-century Rome, has remarked that there was one aspect of the religiously polarized society that remains unclearâ âwhether or not this conflict extended to the grave.â20 As there are many shared graves, it seems that the âconflictâ between pagans and Christians in the times of Augustine perhaps ended at the grave.21 There was, however, a conflict with regard to the religious interpretation of the dead body within the (possibly shared) grave. The religious significance of the space qualified by containing a dead body was in accordance with Roman law, which considered the tomb as a res religiosaâbut only if a corpse has indeed been placed in residence there.22 Here, the dead body makes a religious statement. The process of finding a suitable location for the corpse is a complex social construction that combines notions of material space with notions of transcendental or mental spaces.23 The space of the corpse, thus, becomes a manifest mediation of the transcendence/immanence distinction and an indicator of the way religious traditions deal with that distinction by dealing with the most significant manifestation of contingency in human existence. The third spatial dimension of places described as religious, the vertical order, is a vital element of the way the space of the body is constructed in religious traditions.
In the case of Augustine, which will be discussed in the following, the thesis that âdeath rites are vital to the definition and redefinition of religious ideasâ, proves especially valid. However, it is not only the experience of death that shapes both Augustineâs thinking in particular and religious ideas in general.24 Defining religious ideas by means of a reflection on the proper way of âspacing the corpseâ bears definite relevance to the contact dimension of the history of religions. In Augustine, the problem of spacing the corpse is solved by answering the question of how to describe the dead body and how to deal with the space that is manifested in it. This combination of semantics and pragmatics leads to a semiotic result.
Yet Augustineâs ideas are not merely a product of a theologianâs ivory tower but emerged in diverse situations of religious contact that decisively shaped their form. Scholarship in general has stressed the relational character of Augustineâs work, which emerged in concrete discussions with his environment and in his reactions to contemporary events. After all, Augustine, despite some short periods of retreat, was an official figure throughout his life, both as a teacher, a rhetor, a professor, and later on as a priest, a preacher, and a bishop. Likewise, throughout his life, he is entangled in discursive struggles and arguments. Over half of his writings are either outright polemics or bear at least a polemic character.25
The polemic nature of his writing is the most visible characteristic of the highly contested religious field of Augustineâs time. Northern Africa in late antiquity is, in many regards, an outstanding field in which to study the formative phase of a religion and, perhaps, for religion in general. To Maureen A. Tilley, the area provided Christianity as it institutionalized âwith a bounteous crop of theological reflectionâ, laying the roots for contemporary ecclesiology, sacramental theology, and biblical interpretation.26 These results, however, were not easily achieved. Robin Lane Fox stresses the âdevastating schismâ in Northern Africa (the âBible belt of Latin antiquityâ27 ), which split the Church into two opposing doctrinal communities, âCatholicsâ and âDonatistsâ, as a constant presence in Augustineâs life.28 Brent D. Shaw, in his study on North African Christianity and its internal and external struggles, painted a gruesome picture of the intellectual discourse dominated by the formation of Catholic Christianity: âThe extent to which this new Christian story both displaced and substituted for all other is breathtaking. The power of this Christian talk was produced by many things, among them a remorseless hortatory pedagogy, a hectoring moralizing of the individual, and a ceaseless management of the minutiae of everyday life. Above all, it was a form of speech marked by an absence of humor. It was a morose and deadly serious world. [â¦] What passes for a laugh is a ghastly gloss on your enemyâs spiritual death, on your own coming demise, or on the misfortunes of the sinful and the stupid.â29 Thus, serious attempts at gaining a deeper understanding and acknowledgment of the other cannot be expected in the surviving sources from the many contact situations taking place in Augustineâs lifetime.
There is no doubt that Augustine met some of his interreligious and intrareligious opponents on unequal terms. In the historical situation of the beginning fifth century CE, the struggle between pagan religion and Christianity in the Roman empire was at least politically decided in favor of the latter, thus rendering the situation of contact represented in Augustineâs writings asymmetric. However, this triumphalist picture, which depicted pagans as a tiny minority soon to be extinguished, can also be seen as the very product and wishful thinking of writers such as Augustine, who longed for such a result. Even the conflict between clearly defined pagans and Christians, as described by Augustine, often turns out to be an idealized situation that was opposed to the realities of everyday practice in his lifetime. As Ãric Rebillard points out, âAugustine did use these categories to cast situations in terms of religious conflict and successfully mobilized Christians in support of his agendas. However, he also unambiguously betrays his knowledge that such mobilization was only intermittent and that most Christians deactivated their Christianness once outside the church.â30
Paula Fredriksen has suggested that the contact with Jews reflected in Augustineâs work shows a less aggressive, although still condescending, stance. Heââbeing [well] as capable of bitter anti-Jewish invective as were any of his fourth-century peersââeven counters anti-Judaism in the wake of his struggle with Manicheanism.31 Moreover, âAugustineâs âJewâ expressed the continuing positive theological significance of Judaism as an incarnate, historical community; and that community in principle stretched continuously from the pages of the Bible (with all its metaphysical heights and depths) to the synagogues of the Late Roman Empire.â32 The actual Jews Augustine might have encountered, thus, became a sign as âhistoryâs Pole star, a continuing quotidian revelation of Godâs will shining in the darkness of secular time.â33 Augustineâs position is related to the political and social situation of the time: Jews were not in danger of becoming the next imperial target, as imperially sanctioned Christian violence was predominantly aimed at other Christians. Augustine, Fredriksen argues, theologically restates how things generally were for Jews.34 Thus, following his interpretation of the biblical âmark of Cainâ, he is even willing to integrate the Jews in an inferential manner: âJews and Catholics, he insists, stand together in one religious community, over against all others.â35
However, at least to Augustine himself, the lack of âexternalâ opponents did not mean that âinternalâ opponents were also lacking in number. On the contrary, Augustine perceived that the residues of ideas and practices of the former external opponents were still around and, hence, to him, constituted a threat to the vera religio. Augustine, in this context and as a consequence of his theological ideas, became a âclassic of religious intoleranceâ (Kurt Flasch)âthough, on other occasions, he was able to display a âremarkably eirenic set of suggestionsâ (Jason BeDuhn). For example, in his passage on the Manichean renegade, Augustine has obviously and ostentatiously no interest in doing justice to Manicheans36 as possible fellow seekers for the truth but rather portrays them most derogatorily as carnal, arrogant, and hypocrite lunatics directed by the devil:
I fell in with a set of sensualists, men with glib tongues who ranted and raved and had the snares of the devil in their mouths. They baited the traps by confusing the syllables of the names of God the Father, God the Son Our Lord Jesus Christ, and God the Holy ghost, the Paraclete, who comforts us. These names were always on the tip of their tongues, but only as sounds which they mouthed aloud, for in their hearts they had no inkling of the truth.37
The same asymmetry, basically, holds true for the conflicts with âDonatismâ and âPelagianismâ38 in which Augustine was involved, either due to his active participation in such or as the background to his writings.39
Few authors can compete with Augustine in significance when it comes to an evaluation of the importance of situations of religious contact in the emergence and formation of a distinctive philosophy and theologyâof ideas that are important for the self-understanding of a religious tradition. Here, many occasions of an object language author trying to establish a descriptive meta-language can be discerned. Due to the reverence the works of Augustine enjoyed in later times, his contact-driven theological ideas and findings were highly influential on the later Christian tradition and its self-understanding. Wilhelm Geerlings even considered him to be the greatest revolutionary figure in the process of Christian tradition-building up to present times, having both adapted and transformed traditions before him and having added new elements with his ideas.40 His ideas are both the result and the manifestation of a context-related dynamic process that defies any idea of monolithic intransigent monumentality.41 According to Jason BeDuhn, Augustine âwas, in fact, constantly at work inventing a Christianity for himself thatâgiven who he was, or rather what he turned out to be in terms of historical importanceâhas been widely adopted subsequently as the standard of what Christianity ought to be.â42 Examining Augustine, thus, means not only examining Augustine in the making, but also witnessing religion in the making (A.N. Whitehead).
What is more, the significance of these situations of contact is a major theme of Augustineâs self-descriptions and self-analysis, not least in his âConfessionsâ. Apart from their philosophical and theological content, his writings are also object language documents that aim to deal with situations of contact by establishing a suitable meta-language. The diverse phases of his life, characterized by the debates of the time, played a pivotal role in the development of his thinking. The path he took could be described as paradigmatic, leading the young Augustine via conflicts with Manichaeism43 and Greek philosophy to the adaption of neo-platonic ideas, later in conflict with Donatism and Pelagianism, to his later theological standpoint.44 Additionally, most of his work is reacting to a challenging situation forced clarification of his own ideas and religious convictions. For example, regarding his lifelong struggle with Manichaeism, BeDuhn states: âAugustine found that he constantly had to reinvent what his conversion would mean for him, as he continued to discover the potential of his adopted system and of himself as its point of articulation in the face of the Manichaean challenge.â45 Later in his life, the bitter struggle with Julian of Eclanum, for instance, shaped Christian theology to come, not least with regard to its less appealing aspects, such as the freedom of will and predestination. The significance of his occasional works (Gelegenheitsarbeiten) lies in their relationship to contact, rendering them far more important than mere âminorâ works. In them, Augustine takes the opportunity to present and clarify his position with regard to actual challenges. He even revised his own works at the end of his life regarding his struggles in former and present situations of contact (Retractationes). If one examines the religious tradition of Western Christianity for an exemplification of the assumption of the crucial impact of contact situations on the formation and densification of a religious tradition, Augustine is a prime candidate to turn to.46
2 Some Remarks Concerning Augustineâs Phenomenology of the Corpse
The phenomenon of death, its possible description and theological analysis, is a sustained element in Augustineâs thinking, and he reached a number of important formal conclusions about it.47 In his early text De vera religione, Augustine states that death forces all mortal beings into non-being: âmors autem non esse cogit quidquid moritur.â48 Death, therefore, is the visible expression of a forceful, direct process that is moreover inevitable.
This process and its direction are manifested most clearly in the body, as it is to a greater extent subject to mortality and, therefore, closer to nothingness: âCorpus ergo magis subiacet morti et ideo vicinius est nihilo.â49 The dead body, thus, most significantly shows the tendency towards non-being, the negation of being or presence.50 It does so through visible decay but also through the loss of its former characteristicsâabove all, the loss of movement (action) in the broadest sense. The loss of this capacity is, in certain contexts, a sign of the separation of the soul from the body. In contrast to the views of his contemporaries, such as Ambrose, Augustine did not see this separation as a liberating benefit to the soul but rather a symptom of degeneration caused by sin.51
For this reason, the death of the body, the separation of the soul from the body, is not good for anyone, as it is experienced by those who are, as we say, dying. This violent sundering of the two elements, which are conjoined and interwoven in a living being, is bound to be a harsh and unnatural experience as long as it lasts, until the departure of all feeling, which depended on this interconnection of soul and body.52
According to Augustine, the body is subordinate to life in general, as its consistency depends upon the presence of life, be it the life of the individual body itself or the life of nature in general.53 The dead body, then, could be considered the true obstacle (Gegen-Stand) that disturbs the stream of life and, in indicating nothingness, puts life itself into question. As a consequence, it does not simply occupy an empty space but rather manifests a place that resists living dynamics. The corpse, thus, can be examined both temporally and spatially.
Although the dead body lacks a practical manifestation of time (i.e., action), it is not without temporality. It is on this temporality that Augustineâs rehabilitation of the body in general is based. In the first place, it is considered as âhaving beenâ, something that is now over. The current dead body most obviously has a past. However, it is difficult to describe the corpse as a present object. Augustine himself explicitly pointed out the difficulty in De civitate Dei. Whether the corpse has a future, aside from its capacity to lose further qualities, is dependent on religious ideas. Nevertheless, to identify the dead body, the point of reference is no longer the living or the present but rather the past. To Augustine, the question of the corpseâs future is easily answered. As the saints believed in the promise of resurrection of their very bodies, corpses in Christianity have a distinct prospect of a future.54 This is a result of his ideas about original sin. For the (decaying) body is not the reason for original sin but its punishment, as it is the sinful soul that made the body transient.
For the corruption of the body, which weighs down the soul, is not the cause of the first sin, but its punishment. And it was not the corruptible flesh that made the soul sinful; it was the sinful soul that made the flesh corruptible.55
To Augustine, those who hold the body responsible for the corruption of the soul are, therefore, greatly mistaken: âHowever, those who imagine that all the ills of the soul derive from the body are mistaken.â56 The body is not evil per se and might be rescued. It is this future-orientated stance that makes the crucial difference between the Christian attitude towards the body and both pagan philosophical reflections which denied the possibility of the resurrection of the body, as well as other religious ideas. Here, Augustine quotes Cicero in saying that it is impossible for the body, even for those of Hercules and Romulus, to be transferred to heaven.57
In general, there is a development âtoward a more positive appreciation of bodily reality and toward a more physical understanding of the resurrected bodyâ in Augustineâs thinking from his more rigid beginnings.58 Of course, the rehabilitation of the worldly (âfleshyâ) body is part of Augustineâs struggle against the body-hostile tendencies in Christianity and Manicheism.59 The body, therefore, takes part in the temporal structure of salvation with its particular prospects for the future.60
What might then be said about the bodyâs space? The dead body never simply occupies an indifferent space but is rather integrated into a differentiated context. Having died, the body of the human being does not fall into neutrality and indifference. First of all, it is a center of affection for others, mostly and hopefully in the form of mourning. It becomes an object of care. Thus, it has an intense quality that a mere neutral object lacks. Additionally, the corpse is always a relational body with a strong reference to the surrounding society.61 The indicational context of a world points to the empty space manifested by the body that, in turn, indicates the world as temporal as a shared (past) world. This also holds true in the negative: if a religious tradition considers the dead body to be unclean or contaminated, the strong relationship of the corpse to the surrounding world is ex negativo stressed.
The phenomenology of the dead body shows that the better one grasps the fact that the deceased is no more, the clearer it becomes that the community of the deceased does not experience them as having ended.62 Basic and formal transcendence are embodied in the corpse in a way that does not necessarily have to do with religious ideas concerning a world beyond.63
One might say that the dead body is even only relevant for its living surroundings as it is bereft of any âsubjectiveâ impulse. Burkhard Gladigow analyzed the sociology of the dead body in his work on the social construction of death and the dead body in Roman times. To overcome the systemic crisis that follows the death of a member of a given society, certain rites are introduced to re-member the deceased as well as the living and to reorganize the group. The pompa funebris seen in this way is also a self-presentation and a restructuring of the family, the divi parentum to protect the internal family structure.64 Correspondingly, Arnold van Gennep, in his Les rites de passage has described the rituals of burial as rituals of reaffiliation being intended to mend the chain between the members of the group that has been broken as one member has died.65
Though the dead body appears as an object, it is not what it seems. Admittedly, this fact makes phenomenological description difficult. Death in general puts all self-conduct and self-interpretation into question. Augustine himself even takes a step further and reflects on the difficulties concerning the dead body with regard to language. In De civitate Dei, he states that the characteristic of a human body as âdeadâ is highly disputable, for it is either still living and therefore not dead or it is already beyond death. The word âdeadâ, therefore, does not describe something temporal because death, as well as presence itself, has no temporal extension.66 Therefore, death is not an objective state, and the dead body as such cannot be objectified. As dead, it can only be described in relation to something else, for example, society in the sociological construction of death or as being a visible sign for something in the semiosis of death. In conclusion, regarding Augustineâs phenomenology of death and the dead body, one might come to the following definition: by means of the visible dead body, death transfers a âsubjectâ not into an object but rather into an âobjectiveâ sign.
This description is decisive for Augustineâs phenomenology of the corpse. For those acquainted with his work, the notion will sound pretty familiar from the very basics of his thinking. Fundamental to Augustineâs ontology is the vectorial,67 temporal, and dynamic character of human existence.68 Human existence, according to Augustine, is structured by its particular propensities.69 This idea is expressed in a nutshell at the beginning of the Confessiones with the famous and often quoted line: âfecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te.â70 To Augustine, taking this vectorial character seriously means becoming an indication of the divine that will finally comfort the restless heartâand, to him, it is true Christians who can be phenomenologically described that way. This fundamental structure plays a decisive role, even in Augustineâs struggle to define the proper way of spacing the corpse with regard to different religious contexts.
3 Dealing with the Dead: De Vera Religione, De Civitate Dei, De Cura Pro Mortuis Gerenda
The space of the corpse and its religious significance is not merely a marginal problem in Augustineâs all-compassing theological considerations. If anything, his writings are a prime example of religious object language, which intends to develop a metalanguage to describe contested phenomena, and, above all, those that are contested on basis of the normative action caused by them.
Augustineâs considerations on the dead body were triggered by a situation of religious contact. This is not just something that is clear in retrospect but is in fact explicit in his writings. He himself made direct reference to the situations of contact. The theologian is challenged by the presence of certain practices and foundational ideas that make up pieces of his everyday environment. The three writings further analyzed in the following, De vera religione, De civitate Dei, De cura pro mortuis gerenda, exemplify both Augustineâs thoughts on the problem of the dead body and its (religious) space and the importance of the fact that they emerged in, react to, and conceptually are dealing with a situation of religious contact.
3.1 De Vera Religione
Written around 390 CE, De vera religione, is among Augustineâs early work. The text aims to sketch out a path to âa good and happy lifeâ (vitae bonae ac beatae), and to give an answer to the twofold challenge of pagan philosophyâs ambiguous attitude to the nature of the gods and Manichaeismâs dualist teachings.71 The work is dedicated to his patron and former fellow Manichaean, Romanianus. Notably, Augustine sets out his stern opposition toward tolerant attitudes on the diverse opinions, on the nature of gods on grounds of intellectual integrity.72 Augustine also predominantly employs one of these philosophies, Neo-Platonism, to counter the philosophical and the Manichean threat that also looms in his own intellectual past as a former adherent of Manichean teachings.73 Though the book was written after his conversion and baptism, Augustine was not ordained as a priest until 391, so it does not have the status of having been written by a member of the clergy. Thus, the book is written in the spirit of a philosophically moderated Christianity, presenting itself as the true and definite heir to classical Greek philosophy and aimed toward contemporary educated supporters of Manichaeism and followers of Plato.74 It is notable that the later Augustine, now a bishop and stern theologian, would discard much of his own early writing. Although useful in opposing Manichaeism, he thought it too permeated with the language and the spirit of the philosophers.75
The main opponent of Augustineâs argumentation concerning the deceased and the dead body is explicitly named in De vera religione in a significant general context. Here, he makes the case for true religion by opposing it to false religious ideas. The ideas he opposes are listed individually and introduced by the jussive formula non sit nobis religio. Among these false ideas âthat our religion shall not beâ one finds the cults of human imagination, of human works of art, of beasts, demons or natural elements (earth, water, air), of stars, of biological life or even of reason in the form of the most reasonable soul.
However, Augustineâs argument does not merely consist of negating false ideas and teachings but also turns to the directive element and the propensities of the âtrue religionâ. Augustine urges those who are close to him to move as fast as possible to where God calls them.
Therefore, I urge you, my dearest and closest people, and I urge myself together with you: let us hurry, as fast as possible, to where God in his wisdom calls us.
Quae cum ita sint, hortor vos, homines carissimi et proximi mei, meque ipsum hortor vobiscum, ut ad id quod nos per sapientiam suam deus hortatur quanta possumus celertitate curramus.76
Here, Augustine again describes the vectorial existence of the adherents of the true religion as a motion that comprises turning away from false religious ideas and moving toward the direction that Godâs wisdom indicates. To him, the dynamics of the event are dominated by the attraction of Godâs wisdom, which pulls the individual to follow.77
Renouncing certain ideas is the first phase of the dynamic process followed by believers. This is all the more important as there were so many ideas in the historical setting, that is, the Roman Empire of late antiquity. In Augustineâs summary definition of true religion through disassociation from false ideas, the following lines are most relevant to our general theme:
Non sit nobis religio cultus hominum mortuorum, quia si pie vixerunt, non sic habentur ut tales quaerant honores, sed illum a nobis coli volunt quo inluminate laetantur meriti sui nos esse conservos.78
True religion, Augustine argues, will not be a cult of the dead, because if the deceased were pious, they would not have strived for such a dubious honor. Instead, they would want those left behind to worship the One, who illuminated and blessed them, and so we should partake of their achievements.
However, the cult of the dead that Augustine attacks here is not easy to define, as it is not a clear-cut institutional entity but rather a mélange of everyday practices. Ramsey MacMullen stresses that âfor hundreds of years, the pagan cult of the dead was a common part of Christianityâ; thus, âpaganâ ideas were commonly in use in reality, with regard to the ways late antique Christians dealt with the dead.79 It may even be argued that the cult of the dead Augustine argues against actually only emerged as an addressable entity through his criticism.80 Cults of the dead, however, count among the eldest and most general customs in human societies. It is characterized by a typical ambivalence between caring for the dead and seeking social interaction with them versus fear of their possible return seeking revenge.81 The explicit cult of the dead required certain practices, among them most prominently a meal or feast taking place at the grave (silicernium on the first day of burial and cena noventialis on the ninth day) at a certain time (Parentalia).82 These meals were often described and criticized as tending towards excess. Accordingly, writers such as Tertullian suggest that Christians should not participate in the cults of the dead or âbring offerings to the tomb or consume food from such offerings at banquets given to celebrate the dead.â83 In general, the aims of cults of the dead are directed towards human society, as they stabilize sociality beyond the grave and integrate and disintegrate the dead. Nevertheless, according to Augustine, the tacitly accepted cult of the dead is among the ideas that must be eradicated in order to reach âtrue religionâ. The reason for this is spatially significant. Augustine could take the easy way out by simply stating that Christianity, as the true religion, is not about dead people but the living Godâbut he does not do so as directly as might be expected.84 The manner in which he reaches this conclusion via the dead body is of relevance to our general theme.
In his Confessions, Augustine even indicates that his mother was inclined toward the cult of the dead, describing how she tried to gain access to the martyrâs tombs with offerings, although they were duly refused, and she immediately renounced this custom. Augustineâs teacher Ambrose had previously forbidden offerings due to the risk of intemperance and the similarity to the pagan rite of parentalia.85 Listing it among the cults the true religion should not be, Augustine makes it clear that the cult of the deceased is something that contests true religion. Its falseness is clear in its handling of the deceased, by the direction that is manifested in the way such cults deal with dead bodies. According to Augustine, it is not the deceasedâif they had been truly pious and faithfulâwho have to be worshipped, that is, on whom attention is directed. Rather, they are to be dealt with as indicating someone different, the One who illuminates them, and to which illumination of the afterworld is irresistibly drawn. The dead body, thus, provides a method, indicating a way that, if followed, leads to ultimate salvation (meta-hodos). If the dead bodies of the deceased cannot indicate in this manner, then the body should not be a subject of veneration. One honors the dead if one follows their directive lead and not if one venerates themselves religiously. â[H]onorandi ergo sunt propter imitationem, non adorandi propter religionem.â86 The method is the imitation of the particular directedness. This instrumental use of the pious deceased as directional markers thus means taking part in their achievements. Again, it is the spatial role of the dead that must be re-interpreted, this time as concerns the directions or directives the dead body expresses if interpreted in line with the requirements of the âtrue religionâ.
Augustineâs spatial ideas about the dead body are an instrument of demarcation against false religious ideas as manifested in certain cults he witnessed in his social environment. As such, they emerge in a situation of religious contact and contest. If Dodds is right in describing paganism in the fourth century as a living corpse, decaying from the moment the state withdrew protection, then Augustineâs struggle for the correct interpretation of the dead body reaches even another, more general level as a broader theoretical claim.87
3.2 De Civitate Dei
Though one might think of several contemporary cults that fell under the axe of Augustineâs verdictâthe local amalgamation of Christian and Greco-Roman elements, the classical Roman cult of the dead, and so onâit is not an actual cult of the dead, which he attacks, but rather the ideas behind one. Something like a cult of the dead is to be found within the ideas of all religious traditions, except, of course, Christianity in Augustineâs interpretation. The tacit cult of the dead, a false interpretation of the dead leading to a dislocation of the dead body, is something that has to be overcome in the process of thinking clearly about death. To Augustine, such a process could be initiated by the description of the dead body.
It should, therefore, not come as a surprise that this theme is located in a most prominent place in Augustineâs oeuvre, in his De civitate Dei, Book I, which introduces and frames the whole following discussion. As an âapology for Christianityâs superiority on all frontsâ, De vera religione can be considered a forerunner of De civitate Dei.88 De civitate Dei represents both interreligious and intrareligious contact as reflections on the relationship between christianitas and romanitas. Written between 413 and 426, De civitate Dei is a defense of Christianity against the accusations of pagans who indicted it as responsible for the conquest and sack of the city of Rome by the Visigoths in 410. Moreover, the work takes issue against a Christian version of the ideology of the âeternal Romeâ, seeking to show that Christian hope is by no means connected to political institutions.89 Augustine sees the reverence of Rome among Christian authors as close to idolatry and thus something that must be opposed. In doing so, Augustine clarifies the topology of the city with regard to his theological conception, or rather; he makes his endeavor a spatial enterprise. He âdesignates the proper sphere and function of political structures, demythologizes them from all illusionism and idealism, and desacralizes all hierarchical sacralism and triumphalism of political life.â90 If John Marenbon is right in stating that De civitate Dei is âa foundational book for the Problem of Paganismâ, one could even go so far as to say that the book not only represents but also establishes, a situation of religious contact.91 Motivated by anger and zeal, Augustine himself considered the work to be his great and difficult work (magnum opus et arduum).92
In any case, the work is a tale of two cities, the civitas Dei and the civitas terrena. It is, therefore, about a particular spatial contact between the inner structure of two social orders, as âthere is a thematic contraposition of due civitates, which are intermingled in human history, though having different destinies.â93 Augustine defines order as follows: â[O]rder is the arrangement of things equal and unequal in a pattern which assigns to each its proper position.â94
Highlighted in the text, the discussion on the proper space of the corpse in De civitate Dei has some significance. The book is about a place, or rather, a particular (relational) space. Augustine describes the city of God in relation to the civitas terrena exemplified by Rome, the most prominent city of the late antique world, focusing not least on the atrocities of the conquest of this very city, about the dead and their remains within. The place of the dead is stage-managed and discussed by Augustine in a twofold way. In his presentation, corpses are the location of a religious power-play, mainly concerning the question of which Divinity provides the most power to protect its followers and the dead themselves. Corpses, thus, manifest the power and the rightful claims of the religious tradition in question. To Augustine, religion functions via corpsesâa motto more fittingly rendered into German: âReligion geht über Leichen.â
Augustineâs discussion from the very beginning is related to spatial issues. In the introductory opening chapter of De civitate Dei, Augustine describes the role of the âmemorial places of the Martyrsâ and the âChurches of the Apostlesâ (martyrum loca et basilicae apostolorum) as true sanctuaries for Christians and pagans alike during the conquest of Rome. Even the enemies of the city of God fled to these particular places. In Augustineâs account, they enclose a particular space that is qualified by its capacity to counter the usual way things happen, above all in a situation of hardship and distress such as the sack of a city. In his report, many who fled there to seek shelter from the looting conquerors were thus saved from their âdesire to destroyâ.
The bloodthirsty enemy raged thus far, but here the frenzy of butchery was checked; to these refuges the merciful among the enemy conveyed those whom they had spared outside, to save them from encountering foes who had no such pity.95
Moreover, the conquerorsâ âlust to make prisonersâ was similarly pacified by the holy places (captivandi cupiditas frangebatur).96 Thus, in Augustineâs description, the places of the dead have a significant impact, opposing destructive attitudes and tendencies among human beings in situations of extreme temptation and emotional agitation. From the spatial perspective, the holy places of the dead, thus, saved not only Christians but anybody who entered them from disintegration and dislocation.97 Here, Christians were saved alongside their previous tormentors, the Romans who had once persecuted them. Grace even extended to the Visigoth looters and pillagers, who, contrary to the customs of war, spared them (praeter bellorum morem truculenti barbari pepercerunt).98 With this report, Augustine makes the location of the dead a starting point for his further discussion by additionally introducing a certain quality to the places in question, namely their capacity for human salvation in general. The places of the dead, therefore, have impacts that reach far beyond the dead themselves. The whole work seeks to answer questions about the nature of the place those interested in their salvation really belong to.
It is further significant that Augustineâs introductory considerations also turn toward the body, and the female body in particular. These thoughts are also relevant regarding questions of religious space. Augustine engages in an emphatic attack on the practice of âhonor suicidesâ, taking his point of departure from the rape of Christian women during the sack of the city. Here, Augustine utilizes a spatial shift of focus, claiming that the honor of a woman is based upon the purity of her holy will and not on her body. Thus, the violation of her body cannot damage her soul. As such, the space of honorable conductâdirectedness towards Godâ is located in the soul and not in the corporeal space of the human body.99 Disposing of the body by suicide is, therefore, not an option as it contradicts the Fifth Commandment.100 The Roman practice of suicide for reasons of honor, to Augustine, is an example of spatial disorientation as to the places where notions of honor are valid. Roman idols of old, such as Lucretia and Cato are, thus, bereft of their honor due to their deathsâwhich had been acclaimed by the Romans for the very same reason.101 At the same time, Augustine also relocates the body in the referential context to determine what makes an exemplary conduct of life.
Having set the overarching theme of the book in the introductory chapter with regard to the spatial characteristics associated with the body and the dead in âtrue religionâ, Augustine continues his considerations on the particular space of the City of God. The contrasting relationship to the conquered and plundered Rome for this space is of vital importance to his argument. His book, thus, manifests a situation of contrasting contacts, emerging from an object language perspective in which the prevailing parts struggle about the notion of space. First, Augustine explicitly contradicts ideas that consider the former cult of the Gods necessary for the welfare of human society. Secondly, he opposes those who, by means of religious utilitarism, assume the cult of the gods is appropriate, thanks to its prospect of a future life.102
In Book I Chapter 12 of De civitate Dei Augustine gives another relevant statement on how to space the corpse in a religiously appropriate way in his discussion of the problem of the proper burial of the dead, which could not be accomplished after the conquest. Though many escaped into the sanctuaries, there were, nevertheless, many Christian victims whose bodies had to be left unburied (At enim in tanta strage cadaverum nec sepeliri poturenunt).103 To counter the accusation that the Christian God was not even able to protect the dead bodies of his believers, Augustine raises the proposition that as Christians do not fear death in the form of the destruction of the body as the soul is unaffected, they should not fear the destruction of the body after it is dead, for this too leaves the soul untouched. There is no special earthly place for the dead, even if they are not buried, as they always âremain in the Sphere of Heaven and earth, which the Lord fills with His presenceâ.
And so many Christian bodies have not received a covering of earth, and yet no one has separated any of them from heaven and earth, and the whole universe is filled with the presence of him who knows from where he is to raise up what he has created.104
As the above lines suggest, the bodies of Christians are always spatially close to salvation, no matter if and where the corpses are actually buried. This idea suggests a revision of the spatial aspects of distance and closeness with regard to religious ideas. The care of the dead body, and the burial itself, are therefore merely comforts for the living, not a necessary service for the dead.
Such things as a decent funeral and a proper burial, with its procession of mourners, are a consolation to the living rather than a help to the departed.105
Accordingly, the living bear no guilt to the dead in a situation where a respectful burial is impossible, as was the case during the conquest of Rome.106
On this point, Augustine notes that comparison with another religious tradition shows some basic accordance with his view. Augustine points out that even the philosophersâCicero in his discussion of death in his Tusculanae disputationes or Senecaâs De tranquillitate animiâand poets of old, treated as authorities by Augustineâs accusers, despise excessive care over burials.107 Both Augustine and the philosophers, however, were set against a situation where the majority felt differently.
This solidarity with the philosophy of old, nevertheless, has some dangerous theological implications, which Augustine must carefully avoid. The apparent carelessness concerning the corpse and its burial is not to be confused with a general hostile attitude towards the physical body, a stance Augustine might associate with the Manicheans.108 In his theological efforts, Augustine has to find some middle way between two misinterpretations of the bodyâeither overestimating or underestimating its religious relevance.
His solution is the following: as the dead bodies, when interpreted and located correctly, may serve as an important means for the consolidation of the living, the care for the dead (body) should not be completely abolished, as the Holy Spirit had already made ample use of them in their lifetime, particularly in the case of the just and the believers:
This does not mean that the bodies of the departed are to be scorned and cast away, particularly not the bodies of the righteous and faithful, of which the Spirit has made holy use as instruments for good works of every kind.109
In Augustineâs description, the body is thus characterized as a possible open space for the epiphany of the Spirit, who uses it in doing good and holy works. It follows from this idea, however, that despising the body, or rather, the dead body, is a severe misunderstanding of the body as a useful vessel for the action of the Divine.110
Examples from the Scripture, for instance, in the case of Tobias, who gained merit by burying the dead, and in the burial of Jesus, show there is some sense to rites of burial and caring. This sense is grounded in the fact that the body belongs to manâs nature itself.111 Furthermore, the rites and practices have been a practice of old and may claim the title of a tradition that is not easily cast aside.
So, Augustine describes the correct interpretation of burial rites by formalizing them in the sense of emptying space for the directives of the Divine Powers. It is the Deity itself that might use the bodies as âorgans and vesselsâ for its salvational action. This action does not take place on behalf of the dead, who are, of course, bereft of any feelings, but rather, via the corpse for the sake of the living and caring. In De cura pro mortuis gerenda, Augustine states that whatever is spent on the burial of the body is of no assistance for its salvation, but is merely a humane ceremony in accord with that feeling by which âno man ever hates his own fleshâ: âcorpori autem humando quidquid inpenditur, non est praesidium salutis, sed humanitatis officium secundum affectum, quo nemo umquam carnem suam odio habet.â112 Seen in this light, the human ceremony does not belong to religion at all. It becomes religious if, through caring for the dead, the dead body serves as an indicator for resurrection to the living, thus strengthening belief.
These authorities are not instructing us that dead bodies have any feeling; they are pointing out that the providence of God, who approves such acts of duty and piety, is concerned with the bodies of the dead, so as to promote faith in the resurrection.113
The empty space of the dead body, thus, becomes a sign, a directive for possible salvation, and, as a consequence, a space for further thinking and action.114
3.3 De Cura Pro Mortuis Gerenda
Augustine considered the argumentation contained in the first book, chapters 12 and 13, of De civitate Dei to be so important that he quoted it verbatim in his later treatise De cura pro mortuis gerenda. This text forms a part of his Retractationes, the reconsideration, and rewriting of his previous work, and hence De cura pro mortuis gerenda can be considered part of Augustineâs self-assuring project as a religious writer. Furthermore, De cura pro mortuis gerenda has additional significance for theology and the scholarly study of religious practices, for it is âthe only early Christian treatise dedicated to burial and the care for the deceased.â115 Augustine, in general, is the most important source for our knowledge of early Christian funerary customs.116
As with the previous texts studied here, this text emerged as an occasional work, as a reaction to a theological challenge imposed on Augustine by his environment. It is written in the form of a letter as an answer to a question posed by Augustineâs admirer and colleague, the former Roman senator and convert to severe monasticism, Paulinus of Nola. The two theologians had maintained a correspondence since 395. Situations of religious contact are both the frame and subject matter of their exchange: thanks to their correspondence, Paulinus was well acquainted with Augustineâs works targeting the Manicheans and praised them hymnally as a new Pentateuch (hoc Pentateucho tuo contra Manichaeos)117 to help further the church in many cities.118 Furthermore, Augustine warned him of the dangers of Pelagianism. These various struggles form the background of De cura pro mortuis gerenda as well.119
In the surviving letters of their correspondence, the ways to theologically deal with death, the grave, and the body, particularly as the resurrected body, were a recurring subject. There are reports of miracles said to have occurred at the grave of saints, on the proper reactions to the loss of a close relative, and considerations on the nature of the body in and after resurrection.120 To Paulinus, the question of the space of the corpse is of particular importance. He was an admirer of the martyr Felix of Nola and settled near his grave, later building a place of reverence and pilgrimage there, and moreover composed annual hymns in his honor. Around 410, he became bishop of Nola, his place of reverential residence.
The establishment of a place of reverence for a martyr is a spatial event. As Peter Brown has shown, the very establishment of places devoted to the cult of the saints involved a remarkable spatial shift in the late antique landscape and a corresponding redefinition of the space associated with the dead bodies of the saints. The redefinition involved an increase of emphasis due to the presence of a particular (dead) body, considered to be exemplary. In the course of time, the landscape âcame to be dotted with clearly indicated loci, where heaven and earth met. The shrine containing a grave or, more frequently, a fragmentary relic was very often called quite simply âthe placeâ: loca sanctorum,
Not without personal stakes in this issue, in a letter written late in his correspondence with Augustine around 420 CE, Paulinus inquired whether a person benefited when his body was buried at the tomb of some saint after he had died.123 The question is of great spatial significance, not least because the space of burial was not yet controlled by ecclesiastical regulation âconcerning who can be buried where, except when the burial is to be in a space controlled by the Church.â124 Paulinus argued that caring for the body of oneâs deceased is not merely some useless act habitually performed by religious and faithful minds. As the entire Church was accustomed to offering prayers for the departed, it may be conjectured that it indeed does help if a body is buried by faithful believers in a spot where the aid of the saints might be drawn upon.125 As a consequence, Paulinus was deeply worried about the contradiction that appears between these findings and the biblical idea that benefit is only to be achieved by deeds before death, not after it. Unfortunately, the letter in which he raised the issue of the depositio ad sanctos and asked his colleagueâs opinion has to be reconstructed from Augustineâs answer, as it was lost to the afterworld.
Through his request, Paulinus sets the stage for Augustineâs object language attempt to deal with a particular situation of contact, dealing at once with intra-religious and interreligious elements and the question of the contact of the divine and the temporal sphere. De cura pro mortuis gerenda is Augustineâs pastoral answer to the letter written by his theological colleague and fellow bishop.126 There is also a close connection between the considerations in De cura pro mortuis gerenda and the considerations on death and burial that can be found in Augustineâs other work, above all, in his Confessiones.127 With regard to funeral practices, Augustine was concerned with the pagan customs still prevailing in Christian practices, such as feastings at the graves.128 Regarding the main point of Paulinusâ request, however, it is conspicuous that nowhere in his text does Augustine explicitly address the manner in which the dead may take advantage of their burial ad sanctos. Scholars suggest that one should think of either the protection of the buried remains, which would enable the dead to regenerate at the time of the resurrection, or of the support the martyrs may offer to the dead, referring to their ability to plead for the deceased on the occasion of the Last Judgement. Perhaps the effectiveness of prayers of the living on behalf of the deceased is increased by the saints who amplify them.129 Taking a measured view130 of practices associated with the cult of the saints, and thus, showing an awareness of the linkage between the body and new forms of piety, Augustine answers that it depends on the kind of life one has led in the body whether pious acts will help.131 Whether the soul of the dead profits from the place where it lies or does not requires a more careful investigation. Augustine here hints at a comparison of religious traditions. He draws on the example of Virgil, who states that the unburied are prohibited from crossing the river Styx and reaching Hades.132
However, for believers of the âtrue religionâ, this is not a problem, for harm to the body is not inflicted on the soul either before or after death, as Augustine described in De civitate Dei. Nevertheless, there is another space at stake beyond the place of burial. Augustine refers to the example of the martyrs in Gaul as described by Eusebius, whose bodies were fed to the dogs, then cremated, and the ashes scattered upon the Rhone River. He concludes, then, that these atrocities were permitted by divine providence to show this life is, in fact, of little value compared with a confession of Christ and that being buried is of even less importance. If the savage treatment of the bodies could have harmed the martyrâs âmost victorious soulsâ, then, Augustine suggests, God would never have allowed this to happen:
[â¦] quod non ob aliud credendum est diuinitus fuisse permissum, nisi ut discerent christiani in confitendo Christum, dum contemnunt hanc uitam, multo magis contemnere sepulturam. Hoc enim quod ingenti saeuitia de corporibus martyrum factum est, si eis quidquam noceret, quo minus beate requiescerent eorum uictoriosissimi spiritus, non utique fieri sineretur.133
Though âno one ever hates his own bodyâ (nemo umquam carnem suam odio habet Eph. 5:29), it is merely the future prospect of the destruction of the body that is painful for the living, for the lifeless body itself can experience no suffering.134 Accordingly, burial rites are merely comfort for the living (sed cum talia uiuorum solacia requiruntur), albeit a desirable one.135 However, as Augustine has elaborated in De civitate Dei and quoted again in De cura pro mortuis gerenda, dead bodies are not to be neglected, for they fulfill an important function. They signify that the providence of God is also concerned with the bodies of the dead âin order that our faith in the resurrection might be strengthened.â136
Above all, the care for the dead, not least in placing them near the places of martyrs and saints, is always a sign, and particularly âa mark of good and human disposition.â137 Nevertheless, the good disposition refers to the living who remain to care; the only way the deceased might profit from being placed near religious sites is semiotic. To Augustine, the proper grave might function as an indicative instruction for the afterworld: first, in the sense that it allows remembrance of the deceased, and secondly, in the sense that it allows the pious to commend the departed to the relevant saints by means of their prayers:
When therefore a mind recollects where the body of a very dear friend lies buried, and in the process the place represents itself to his thoughts as a place made reverent by the name of a martyr, such a state of mind then commends that soul to that martyr by his remembrance and prayer.138
Thus, the burial place serves as a catalyst for prayer, which then directs the piously remembered âobjectâ towards a higher goal. This directional pathway, Augustine might say, is even made firmer by the directive power of martyrs.139 Hence, it is the living affection of those remembering that makes the burial place beneficial; the grave and the body lying there are spaces of resonance for the inner dispositions of the pious living. Accordingly, even a holy place like a martyrâs grave does not gain its specific aura via the holiness of the body buried there, but rather due to the powerful history of mourners in past and present who showed their affection in that place, for âthe mindâs recollection of that holy spot renews and increases the affection which came first.â140
In a sense, Augustineâs argument is directed against the religious idea manifested in the lines of Virgil (Aen. 6.326â328),141 on the impossibility of the unburied crossing the river in Hades: an forte reuocandum est in opinionem, quod infernum fluuium insepulti non poterant transmeare?142 This reference to Virgil gives Augustine the opportunity to clarify his standpoint unambiguously. The Christian concept of resurrection is quite different and completely independent from the corpse as such, not because of its insignificance but because of the significance of Godâs overall semiotic presence, which relates the body closely to Him. While spacing the corpse for Virgil meant spacing the body, in a Christian context, spacing the corpse means locating it in a relational context where the mind is directed towards Heavens and the actual body is an amplifier (reinforcer) of the directive-indicative structure connecting the believerâs mind to its final aim. This amplifying function can only be accomplished if the dead body is considered to be an empty directional space.143
4 The Contested Dead Body and Its Directive SpaceâConfessiones, Book IV and IX
As Kurt Flasch has highlighted, the Confessiones is a recursive and reflexive work written in order to promote self-understanding through theoretical conception.144 The autobiographic material is not presented as an element of a biographical account or a description of a certain historical situation. Rather, it is used to illustrate the conceptual idea guiding the whole enterprise. The book is a treatise on the directed guidedness of human existence, which follows from theological considerations on the nature of God and his divine mercy, displaying a non-traditional âruthless theocentrism.â145
The phenomenon of death and its results are also subject to the theological presupposition. In his Confessions, Augustine describes two ways of dealing with the dead, in the sense of spacing the corpse into a different context. This context becomes visible in two forms of affection the deceased inflicts upon his mind. As Johannes Brachtendorf has repeatedly shown, the two scenes in Book IV about the death of an unnamed friend and the lines concerning the death of his mother Monica in Book IX and the respective impacts of their passing on Augustine are parallel in their composition.146 Augustine borrows the theme, most of the material, and the therapeutic solution from antique literature.147 Virgil is once again a major source of reference, especially in Augustineâs description and analysis of his mother, Monica. Therefore, Augustine deliberately models his account of his mother after the model form provided by the Aeneid.148
However, the mirrored composition also allows a comparison of the two ways of mourning Augustine experienced, as well as an evaluation of the different ways of dealing with the dead bodies.149 As they are associated with different practices regarding the dead, Augustine here explicitly compares and evaluates religious attitudes and ideas. The intellectual and affectual ways of dealing with death Augustine describes are also related to his own conversional process, as the death of his friend occurs before his conversion, as described in Books 7 and 8, and the death and burial of his mother after it. Moreover, his motherâs death gains additional structural importance, for it concludes the âautobiographicalâ account Augustine gives in his work.150 Hence, the state of mind that Augustine describes for himself at this point in the narrative functions as a kind of formal baseline for how Augustine will structure his later thinking.
The setting of the first death scene is introduced as follows. A young Augustine, newly begun in his career as a teacher, was on friendly terms with a young man of the same age in his hometown of Thagaste. The friend, seduced by Augustine himself, shared the flawed ideas Augustine held this time, to the horror of his pious mother, Monica.151 Despiteâand perhaps because ofâthese ideas, Augustine states his conviction that his soul could not live without his friend: mecum iam errabat in animo ille homo, et non poterat anima mea sine illo.152
As Augustineâs description makes clear, both he and his friend can be described as having a precarious and frivolous religiosity. As such, the friend is characterized by his similarities to Augustine rather than being marked off as a distinct individualâhe even has no name in Augustineâs account.153 They both had fun in the presence of the other. Soon, however, things became serious. The unnamed friend was baptized whilst he was unconscious as he suffered from a serious fever. Although he first recovered, seemingly in opposition to the young Augustineâs careless suggestion that the act of baptism was done only formally and was without any serious meaning, the beloved friend died shortly afterward when the fever returned. Augustine fell into deep grief, tortured by the friendâs absence that made hell from everything around him by means of the empty space of the missing friend.154 It is important that Augustine here is mainly concerned with the absence of his friendâs bodily appearance, as perceived through sensory perception:
My eyes searched everywhere for him, but he was not there to be seen. I hated all the places we had known together, because he was not in them and they could not longer whisper to me âHere he comes!â as they would have done had he been alive but absent for a while.155
His heart drowned in a dark mood; his sensory perception only allowed Augustine to perceive death: âBlack grief closed over my heart and wherever I looked I saw only death.â156 The description of mourning in the Confessions here is closely modeled after the description of grief in Ciceroâs Tusculanae disputationes as some âhideous and cruel beastâ (taetram et inmanem beluam) that is likely to destroy oneâs life.157
Not by accident, in connection with the notion of the âheartâ being grieved, a basic motif of unrest reappears in this context via an intensified quotation of Psalm 41:6ââI asked my soul why it is so sad and full of unrest within me.â158 In the following, Augustine further emphasizes the deeply troubled state of his soul through scriptural and literary devices:
I lived in a fever, convulsed with tears and sighs that allowed me neither rest nor peace of mind. My soul was a burden, bruised and bleeding. It was tired of the man who carried it, but I found no place to set it down to rest. Neither the charm of the countryside nor the sweet scents of a garden could soothe it. It found no peace in song or laughter, none in the company of friends at table or in the pleasures of love, none even in books or poetry.159
Facing the death of his friend, for Augustine, his entire existence is put into question; his self-understanding is alienated, the tranquility of his heart is lost, and the direction of his life is unclear. Augustine summarizes his state of mind as follows: âI had become a puzzle to myself [â¦]â (factus eram ipse mihi magna quaestio [â¦]).160
Augustine now explains why this is the case: this manner of dealing with death is a misinterpretation of the empty space that was formerly filled by the deceased. Following Augustineâs description with regard to spatial structures, one could say that the deceased opens a hole in the structure of life that leads the unquiet soul to nothingness. Socially, one might follow van Gennep in saying that those who are left behind now belong to a special sphere, neither living nor dead.161 The pertinent open space intensifies self-reference to the point when self-reference becomes painful and impossible to endure. Accordingly, Augustine writes: âAs I tried to put my soul to rest, it slipped into a void and lapsed back upon meââand, thus, he finds himself in an ill-fated space (infelix locus) that is characterized by opposing directives and the impossibility to flee oneself as the main cause of mischief:
The god I worshipped was my own delusion, and if I tried to find in it a place to rest my burden, there was nothing there to uphold it. It only fell and weighed me down once more, so that I was still my own unhappy prisoner, unable to live in such a state yet powerless to escape from it. Where could my heart find refuge from itself? Where could I go, yet leave myself behind? Was there any place where I should not be a prey to myself?162
Thrust into a vicious circle by the empty space of the dead body, the affectation as permanent self-affection threatens the very existence of the living. It is the hidden cult of the dead that lies behind the affection Augustine describes, which endangers human existence with despair. It is death or the dead body taken as such that makes the experience of loss devastating: that is, to fail to see the directional-indicative structure of human existence. This blindness seduces the human mind into thinking of humans as entities grounded in their own right.163 Here, the experience of death shakes the security of existence in a more profound manner than simply the threat of the finiteness of life. Augustine puts the decisive contrast between the wrong and the right way to deal with the dead in spatial terms: in emotion and habit, it is wrong to be directed toward oneself, and it is right to be directed toward God.164
A well-acknowledged structural feature of the Confessiones, the directedness towards the divine is represented in the series of ascents âby which Augustine mentally attempted to rise out of the material world and approach the immaterial realm of God. He presented these ascents as the goal of his spiritual development, despite his being officially committed to the very different Catholic goals of physical resurrection and last judgement.â165 However, ascent and hope for resurrection are not necessarily contradictory, as Augustine characterizes the proper order of human existence in this world as being directed toward God, and hence, a spiritual ascending can be described as an expression of this direction. Accordingly, Augustine deals with the transcendence/immanence distinction of the vera religio by means of contemplating and propagating a directed ascent. The most impressive example of such an ascent is the visionary experience he shares with his mother shortly before her death. Here, the temporal and spatial elements of the description are of great importance, not least in the setting of the scene. Following Godâs secret direction, Augustine and his mother were standing at a window that led to a garden in the house:
Not long before the day on which she was to leave this lifeâyou knew which day it was to be, O Lord, though we did notâmy mother and I were alone, leaning from a window which overlooked the garden in the courtyard of the house where we were staying at Ostia.166
It is here at the permeable borderline, overlooking a garden, that the following ascent occurs. It consists of an intensifying discussion, leading to a denunciation of the pleasures of the world vis-a-vis the joys of the life eternal. Through discussion, they transcended the physical world and reached the divine sphere:
Higher still we climbed, thinking and speaking all the while in wonder at all that you have made. At length we came to our own souls and passed beyond them to that place of everlasting plenty, where you feed Israel for ever with the food of truth. There life is that Wisdom by which all these things we know are made, all things that have ever been and all that are yet to be. But that Wisdom is not made: it is as it has always been and as it will be for ever [â¦]167
Ascension, thus, is intended to reach a sphere in which temporality plays no more role. It marks a particular space that should, according to Augustine, characterize the directed religious existence of the Christians. However, in this world, the paradisiac sphere can only be indicated. As Robin Lane Fox shows, the directive is associated with a certain place that bears religious significance, namely, as in Milan where the decisive words have reached him, a garden: âIn Ostia, he ascended to God while looking calmly over another garden, which lay beyond a window. Neither garden was a literary fiction: they were two real gardens, the settings for two different encounters with God.â168
The ascension scene, which leads Augustineâs mother to question her spatial existence (Quid hic facio?), provides the background for the following narration on death and burial and, as a consequence, on the proper way to deal with the deceased. The solution to the problem of how to deal with the dead, however, was already hinted at in Book IV with the remark on Monicaâs uneasiness about her sonâs beliefs, which she held to be literally dangerous. Her own death after the decisive conversion of her son is subject to quite a different description, which focuses mainly on the sites and rites of death. It is also about religious space, as Augustine indicates in the introductory sentences to the account of his motherâs death:
We discussed where we could most usefully serve you and together we set out to return to Africa. While we were at Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, my mother died.169
While searching for the proper and most useful (utilius) place to serve God, Augustine and those with him are directed toward their former home. On his way to Thagaste, where the emotionally challenging incident of his friendâs death had occurred, he is confronted with a corresponding event. It is during this twofold directed movement that his motherâs dead body, a body of special importance, enters the narrative, signifying a space the circumstances render particularly important in terms of religious meaning.
First of all, the location of the event is of significance. Monica dies in Ostia while on the journey back to her North African home country and thus remains ultimately separated from her former life. The location of her death, thus, comprises a dynamic directional perspective, which is contrasted with the stability of a residential home. There is no return to the worldly home. She suffers from a fever, loses consciousness, and recovers for a short period. On reawaking, she asks for the place she has been: ubi eram? Facing the emotions of her family, she makes a spatial decision: she should be buried at this very spot: âponitis hicâ, inquit, âmatrem vestram.â170 As Augustineâs unnamed friend in his recovery period had been concerned about his baptism, the Christian Monica is concerned about how her corpse should be spaced in a manner commensurate with her belief. She asks not to be buried at home but at the place of her deathâquite against common custom: â[â¦] but my brother said something to the effect that he wished for her sake that she would die in her own country, not abroad.â171 The very idea of being buried at home causes her emotional torment. The suggestion made by Augustineâs brother and her reaction makes clear that she fears the misinterpretation of the dead body, typical of the cult of the dead. Accusingly, she addresses her faithful son Augustine:
âSee how he talks!â and then, speaking to both of us, she went on, âIt does not matter where you bury my body. Do not let that worry you! All I ask of you is that, wherever you may be, you should remember me at the altar of the Lord.â172
Though it was customary for the relatives to tend the grave and, hence, âburial in Italy would be lonelyâ, these last words of his mother, her spatial and spiritual testament, nevertheless, make Augustine happy.173 They most explicitly show that the previous idle wish (ista inanitas) of hers to be buried beside her husband has been finally abandoned. He recalls his motherâs earlier worries as follows: â[I remembered now my motherâs] great anxiety to be buried beside her husbandâs body in the grave which she had provided and prepared for herself. [â¦] that the earthy remains of husband and wife should be joined as one and covered by the same earth.â174 Monica clearly no longer minds: Augustine suggests that if asked whether she feared to be buried far from home, she would have answered: âNothing is far from God, and I am not afraid that He could not find the spot from where he could awake me on Judgmentâs Day.â175 As Augustine puts it, the same earth to be covered with would be the whole world, filled with Godâs presence. As Jonathan Z. Smith has defined the term, Monica, in her spatial placement of her grace, has joined the âreligions of anywhere.â176 Hence, she had freed herself from the last remnants of the cult of the dead.
This way of spacing her own dead body has a strong effect on Augustineâs affections, beginning with the strange happiness he feels in witnessing his mother die this way and the zealousness he displays in condemning her former plan to be buried next to her husband. Augustineâs motherâs burial is the final nail in his fatherâs coffin as to his significance; the marginalization of his father is now completed. Perhaps Kurt Flasch is right in suggesting that Monicaâs statement to Augustine means a final spatial victory over his near-pagan father in a religiously sublimated form of the Oedipus complexâhis mother now belongs entirely to him and his faith, not at his fatherâs side.177 Augustine, nevertheless, finds a proper place to bury his father by his motherâs side in the literary memorial that is his book.
For our general theme, the more relevant description is on the semiotic level. Augustine describes the death and the burial of his mother as a constant struggle against the customs and habits that are emotionally and conventionally associated with such an occasion. Here, Augustine himself is the place of this struggle. Though he admittedly experiences indescribable grief, he is also conscious of the fact that a tearful burial is not appropriate for someone who does not take death too seriously. The intense relationship to both grave and body is gone, for Augustine, as well as the others present at the burial, had no tears, even as his motherâs body lay next to the grave âas it was the custom in these parts.â178
When the body was carried out for burial, I went and returned without a tear. I did not weep even during the prayers which we recited while the sacrifice of our redemption was offered for my mother and her body rested by the grave before it was laid in the earth, as is the custom there. Yet all day I was secretly weighed down with grief.179
Accordingly, against custom, she did not want her body to be dressed splendidly and to be perfumed, nor did she request a monument or a grave at home. Her body had to be spaced differently; that is, by remembering her at the altar, the empty space of her dead body becomes a sign of the direction of salvation by which the unquiet heart (cor inquietus) may come to rest. As such, this particular space becomes an example of the principle that âplace directs attentionâ, combining spatiality, directedness, and the mental pole into a dynamic whole: place directs attentionâquando ubi sepeliantur adtenditur.180
He further uses the corpse of his mother as a directional indicator with maximum effect, in the sense of the Augustinian notion of utor.181 To him, the place of the death and the burial of his mother have been most useful (utilius) in revering God properly, as he was looking to do when he began his return to Africa. Accordingly, the Confessiones themselves might be considered as the proper burial place for his motherâs dead body. Augustine contextualizes dealing with his motherâs dead body within his directive framework, that is, his exemplary development towards God, and thus uses her corpse as a concluding and highly significant example of this directedness. Therefore, the work is rather a necrography, rather than an (auto-)biography.182 At the very end of his âautobiographicalâ account in Book IX, he expresses his wish that everyone who reads his book may remember Monica and Patricius at the Lordâs altar. It is the only place in any of his works where Augustine mentions his motherâs name:
O my Lord, my God, inspire your servants my brothersâthey are your sons and my masters, whom I serve with heart and voice and penâinspire those of them who read this book to remember Monica, your servant, at your altar and with her Patricius, her husband, who died before her, by whose bodies you brought me into this life, though how it was I do not know.183
Therefore, his motherâs last wish that she become a salvational indication is not fulfilled by him or his relatives by doing service at the altar but rather by his readers and their proper action. Monicaâs last wish is fulfilled by the many who read his âConfessionsâ rather than by his own prayers.184
The corpse is, therefore, formalized twice: first as a corporeal sign indicating salvation, then as a literal sign, thus it is made a sign of signs. Due to the directedness of human existence, (true) religion to Augustine is semiosis.185
Concerning contestations of religious practice in spacing the corpse, the account given by Augustine is similarly relevant. In his description of the funeral, religious contact is still present and forms an indispensable element of the presentation of events. Apart from the portraits of people who belonged to the church, Augustineâs account is the only description of the funeral of a layperson that has survived.186 First of all, in late antique times, religious officials were not yet in control of funerary practices.187 It is important to remember that Monica died without the institutionalized solace of the official church, so that solace, therefore, became an individual, or rather, a family problem.188 The family organized funeral and burial; âthe Church has no say, except to encourage some moderation.â189 Church regulations and practices here were in a state of evolution; there is not even the mention of a need to bless or sanctify the place of burial.190 Consequently, as death and burial remained under the control of the family, the rites performed before death, at funerals, at places of burial, and, finally, the ways of commemorating the dead were still a contested issue.191 Thus, the occasion of the funeral was a matter of negotiation over the way it should be done.
As one can conclude from his descriptions of the burial of Monica, the pagan patterns of burial still largely prevailed in Christian contexts at the time.192 Augustine closes his motherâs eyes and mouth (Premebam oculos eius)193 as it was customary in pagan burial ceremonies.194 There is also a mandatory linguistic pattern of dealing with death, though the voluminous pagan lamentation is replaced by a moderate Christian prayer and weeping.195 In Augustineâs narrative, the conflicting rites, here, cause some family frictionâa friction that further demarcates the line between pagan custom and moderate mourning as advocated by the church. Prominently and most impressively, Augustineâs son, Adeodatus, is rebuked by all when he cries too loudly for his grandmotherâa conventional emotional reaction that Augustine himself has to fight and overcome due to his status.
As she breathed her last, the boy Adeodatus began to wail aloud and only ceased his cries when we all checked him. I, too, felt that I wanted to cry like a child, but a more mature voice within me, the voice of my heart, bade me keep my sobs in check, and I remained silent.196
Augustine describes the battle taking place inside himself, the pains he feels, and the tears he cannot avoid, but a mighty spiritual imperative causes him to hold back his tears.197 In retrospect, Augustine criticizes himself for his weak performance. Nevertheless, the reason for his opposition to such a conventional reaction to death is based on the particular handling of contingency with regard to the transcendence/immanence distinction as found in Christian belief. This way of dealing with death renders the conventional reaction improper, demarcating it from the prevailing custom of the times:
For we did not think it right to mark my motherâs death with weeping and moaning, because such lamentations are the usual accompaniment of death when it is thought of as a state of misery or as total extinction. But she had not died in misery nor had she wholly died. Of this we were certain, both because we knew what a holy life she had led and also because our faith was real, and we had no reasons to doubt it.198
The main difference regarding the dead body is topological. Spacing it into the context of traditional affection theory may lead to despair and nothingness; spacing it into the context of traditional burial practices is irrelevant or even dangerous if they focus the mournerâs mind on the dead instead of indicating the direction to salvation. Augustine must abolish the cult of the dead by refusing all attempts to consider death, the dead body, and its burial place. For him, it marks the conclusion of his individual development, something that may result in apotheosis.
This formal way of spacing the corpse is the correct way to prove oneâs concern for the deceased through demonstrating a proper Christian way to love. Its space is characterized by multiple directives that revise the relation of distance and closeness. In the words of Hannah Arendt, writing about Augustine and his mother:
The dilectio proximi is the concrete realization of the recursive reference beyond the world, and, at the same time it pushes the other out of that world he perceives as providing the meaning for his existence. In correspondence of the meaning of âSein=Ewig-seinâ she does not love the other as a moriturus, but rather as that, that which is persistent in him, his own âFrom-whereâ. [â¦] Via the beloved, the lover reaches for God, in whom alone his existence and his love make sense. For the dilectio proximi death is meaningless, for death, separating him from the world, does the very same thing that she herself by loving that being that is alive within him as his origin, anyway does.199
By means of the deceased beloved, the loving one is directed towards God as the real indicational nexus of his existence, in which direction gives sense to his affection. In a corresponding manner, for Augustine, friendship is not self-sufficient: it is not directed towards itself but rather has its final goal in God to whom it is ultimately directed.200 It is precisely this accumulation of directions and directives pointing from here to some greater beyond that makes the bodyâs space religiously relevant. With reference to De vera religione, Augustine defines the notion of religion in his Retractationes, correspondingly, relating the notion etymologically to processes of direction and connection:
âAd unum deum tendentes [â¦] et ei uni religantes animas nostras, unde religio dicta creditur, omni superstitione careamus.â In his verbis meis ratio, quae reddita est, unde sit dicta religio, plus mihi placuit.201
As such, Augustine establishes a very specific way of dealing with the transcendence/immanence distinction through defining two particular spaces and the contrasting distance between them, a distance that can only be overcome by the directedness Augustine describesânot least with regard to the dead body.
5 Conclusion: Aspects of Space in the Dynamics of Religions
Augustine was a seminal figure in the history of what was later called Western thought, who deeply influenced the world that came after him in fields far beyond theology. His influence on the very basic concepts of intellectual discourse, for example, on the concept of will, language, memory, divine mercy, and not least the concept of time, is unquestionable. The concept of space, however, has triggered less interest among Augustineâs successors and interpreters. In both theology and philosophy, Augustine is important for the sake of his directional topology, and less for his anthropology. His topology is closely connected to the notions of order and being ordered. It is the proper space and place of the human being, and that spaceâs inner, dynamic structure is the main subject of his thinking. As a directive, religious space is a function of religionâs stabilized dynamics. Augustineâs thoughts on the phenomenon of space, derived from his concrete characterization of the space of the dead body, hint at the dynamic structure of a religiously meaningful space, dynamics that are not dependent on temporal change as a trigger or background. Such a space may also display dynamic processes of intensification.202 In any case, spaces remain dynamic, as their stability depends on the dynamic aspect they present.203 Religious spaces, accordingly, are not passive or immobile frameworks of process and events but rather indispensable elements in the process itself.204
With regard to the study of religion, Augustineâs thoughts are important as a pertinent object-language attempt to develop a meta-language in order to deal with a contested subject that has been ascribed religious sense. This is, not least, exemplified in his considerations on the dead body. The space of the corpse is by no means indifferent to religious traditions. As such, it can become a subject of controversy. Augustineâs ideas on the particularity of the directed space emerged in a situation of contact. His writings thus form an argument with his multi-faceted religious environment on the proper way of spacing the corpse.
Funeral customs and rites, which exemplify the handling of contingency, are a basic element of religions in general. The space used and constructed by them thus can become subject to possible comparison, not only by the scholar, but also by the religious traditions themselves as protagonists of those traditions are challenged to clarify their standpoint towards this issue. Therefore, the concepts of space associated to the dead body and its place may well serve as a tertium comparationis between Augustine and his intra-religious and interreligious opponents.205
Augustineâs ascription of religious sense to the phenomenon of space is based on a reconsideration of the inner structure of space as directedness towards God. Relying on a strongly specified transcendence-immanence distinction that poses the greatest contrast possible between the worldly and the divine sphere, Augustine illustrates his theological basic concept by comparison of considerations on the place of the deceased in a Christian context of indication.206 As a consequence, he describes proper religious spatiality as vectorial directedness (in our terms, attraction or propensity) towards God,207 thus associating the immanent and the transcendent sphere together in a relationship of both stern opposition and one-sided dependence.208 âTo join Heaven and Earth at the grave of a dead human beingâ, rendering religion of the late antique Mediterranean not otherworldly but âmost emphatically upperworldlyâ;209 therefore, it is essentially a hierarchical enterprise intended to cause a certain drift that directs the world-after in a certain direction.210 The directedness is here responsible for the particular dynamics which, to Augustine, render human existence and the human heart fundamentally troubled and uneasyâin contrast to the peaceful divine existence they will possess in the life eternal when they rest in God:
[â¦] we [â¦] shall rest in the Sabbath of eternal life [â¦] But you are Goodness itself and need no good besides yourself. You are for ever at rest, because you are your own repose.211
The peace of God directs the process of the proper religion towards Him, thus rendering the spatial existence of the Christian vectorial or directed.212
Ultimately, Augustineâs considerations characterize religious space in its vectorial directedness as a space of semiosis.213 By interpreting temporal items as signs of a higher order and the existence of the human being as directed towards God, thus indicating the divine, the Christian author Augustine both employs and deals with a highly specified form of the transcendence-immanence distinction (TID).
âSince, if a certain amount of devotion (religion) is shown by burying them, there must also be devotion (religion) involved when the proper space of burial is given attention.â (Augustine, De cura pro mortuis gerenda).
An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the KHK workshop Sites and Rites of Death. Spacing the Corpse in and Across Religious Contexts, organized by Georgios Halkias and Ana Echevarria on 12 and 13 October 2011.
For an example one might think of Johann Georg Hamannâs persistent struggle against the bodily shortcomings of enlightenment rationality, and especially of his friend Immanuel Kantâs critical philosophy. See Knut Martin Stünkel, Leibliche Kommunikation. Studien zum Werk Johann Georg Hamanns (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), 203â232.
See chapter on the Transcendence/Immanence Distinction
Bronislaw Malinowski, Magic, Science and Religion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1948), 29.
Thomas Tweed, Crossing and Dwelling. A theory of Religion (Cambridge, MA/ London: Harvard University Press, 2006), 150.
Nietzsche and Gilbert Ryle took up the subject of ghosts in philosophy, whilst Jonathan Z Smith and Russell T McCutcheon have done so for religion. Ghosts, and even undead, play a leading role in Tomoko Masuzawaâs analysis of the scholarly preoccupation with the search for origins. See Tomoko Masuzawa, In Search of Dreamtime. The Quest for the Origin of Religion (Chicago & London: Chicago University Press, 1993), 30.
Here, the text appears in illustrious company. âMagia Posthuma, Phlegon de Mirabilibus, Augustinus de Cura pro Mortuis, Philosophicae et Christianae Cogitationes de Vampiris by John Christopher Herenberg and a thousand others, among which I remember a few of those which he lent to my father.â J. Sheridan LeFanu, âCarmilla,â in In A Glass Darkly (London: Wordsworth, 1995), 269.
M.R. James, Collected Ghost Stories (Ware: Wordsworth, 1992), 315.
Visions of dead persons are explained to be works of angels and not of the deceased themselves (âangelicis igitur operationibus fieri crediderimâ, Augustinus, De cura pro mortuis gerenda, in Paula Johanna Rose, âAugustine on the Relations between the Living and the Deceased. A Discourse-Linguistic Commentary on De cura pro mortuis gerenda,â (PhD Diss., University of Amsterdam, 2011), 242). In the following, I shall quote De cura pro mortuis gerenda from the text provided by Roseâs commentary. Augustine himself admits that occasions when martyrs or saints actually help and how they bring aid are beyond his understanding. Interestingly enough, he relates his incapacity to understand to temporal, and, above all, spatial questions, thus indicating that time and space have to be treated differently than in common understanding: âquamquam ista quaestio uires intellegentiae meae uincit, quemadmodum opitulentur martyres his, quos per eos certum est adiuuari: utrum ipsi per se ipsos adsint uno tempore tam diuersis locis et tanta inter se longinquitate discretis, siue ubi sunt eorum memoriae siue praeter suas memorias, ubicumque adesse sentiuntur, an ipsis in loco suis meritis congruo ab omni mortalium conuersatione remotis et tamen generaliter orantibus pro indigentia supplicantumâsicut nos oramus pro mortuis, quibus utique non praesentamur nec ubi sint uel quid agant scimusâdeus omnipotens, qui est ubique praesens nec concretus nobis nec remotus a nobis, exaudiens martyrum preces, per angelica ministeria usquequaque diffusa praebeat hominibus ista solacia, quibus in huius uitae miseria iudicat esse praebenda, et suorum martyrum merita ubi uult, quando uult, quomodo uult, maximeque per eorum memorias, quoniam hoc nouit expedire nobis ad aedificandam fidem Christi, pro cuius illi confessione sunt passi, mirabili atque ineffabili potestate ac bonitate commendet.â De cura pro mortuis gerenda, 391â393.
See Ãric Rebillard, The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity (Ithaca/ London: Cornell University Press, 2009), XI.
In Augustinâs attitude towards relics and emerging cult of relics in Christianity, see Justin Zangré, Les rites funéraires dans lâAfrique du Nord chrétienne du 3e aux 5e s. à la lumière des oeuvres de Tertullien, Cyprien, Lactance et Augustin, (PhD Diss., Université de Strasbourg, 2016), 380â398.
On the dead body and the grave as spaces of possible intersection between religious traditions, see Alexandra Cuffel, Shared Saints and Festivals Among Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Medieval Mediterranean (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press 2024), 20: Furthermore, the development of attitudes among the different communities toward the dead, holy or otherwise, and their ability to intercede for or communicate with the living, and the need on the part of the dead for the prayers of the living, had substantial points of mutual influence and/or intersection. Beliefs about the dead were not identical, but they were close enough to facilitate one groupâs borrowing from another, or participating in anotherâs rites relating to the holy dead. These commonalities, [â¦] not only made shared rituals easier on the one hand, they also fed the anxieties of some religious leaders that the boundaries between groups were too porous, and that too many âforeignâ practices were being adopted, which corrupted the purity or truth of a given authorâs religion.â
Jonathan Z. Smith, âMap is not Territory,â in Map is not Territory. Studies in the History of Religions (Chicago: The Chicago University Press, 1993), 291.
As an introduction to the question of space in the humanities, see Susanne Rau, Räume. Konzepte, Wahrnehmungen, Nutzungen (Frankfurt/ New York: Campus, 2013).
Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place. Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago/ London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), 28.
See chapter on Model Forms.
See Reinhold Glei and Nikolas Jaspert, âTerms, Turns and Traps: Some Introductory Remarks,â in Locating Religions, eds. Reinhold Glei and Nikolas Jaspert (Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2017), 3.
See Dimitris J. Kyrtatas, âLiving in Tombs: The Secret of an Early Christian Mystical Experience,â in Mystery and Secrecy in the Nag Hammadi Collection and other Ancient Literature: ideas and Practices, eds. Christian H. Bull, Liv Ingeborg Lied, and John D. Turner (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2012).
Mark J. Johnson, âPagan-Christian Burial Practices of the Fourth Century: Shared Tombs?,â Journal of Early Christian Studies 5 (1997): 37.
Johnson, âPagan-Christian Burial Practices of the Fourth Century,â 59.
Johnson, âPagan-Christian Burial Practices of the Fourth Century,â 39.
Glei/ Jaspert, âTerms, Turns, and Traps,â 6.
Compare Wilhelm Geerlings, Augustinus (Freiburg/ Basel/ Wien: Herder, 1999), 15.
See Uwe Neumann, Augustinus (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1998), 54. Here, Neumann also asks if all of these struggles were really merely imposed upon Augustine or if they are rather due to a certain âaggressive potentialâ within his character. No matter how one answers this question, the importance of situations of contact for his thought is clear.
Maureen A. Tilley, âNorth Africa,â in The Cambridge History of Christianity. Vol. 1: Origins to Constantine, eds. Margaret M. Mitchell and Frances M. Young (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 381.
Paula Fredriksen, âVile Bodies: Paul and Augustine on the Resurrection of the Flesh,â in Biblical Hermeneutics in Historical Perspective. Studies in Honor of Karlfried Froehlich on His Sixtieth Birthday, eds. Mark S. Burrows and Paul Rorem (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 84.
Robin Lane Fox, Augustine. Conversions to Confessions (New York: Basic Books, 2015), 25.
Brent D. Shaw, Sacred Violence. African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 4.
Ãric Rebillard, Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200â450 CE (Ithaca/ London: Cornell University Press, 2017), 8.
See Paula Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews. A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism (New Haven/ London: Yale University Press, 2010), 261. See ibid., 259: âConfronting Faustus, Augustine brilliantly integrated his defense of catholic dogma and scripture with a startlingly original and positive apologetic for ancient Jewish practice. Both the generation between Abraham and Jesus and the foundational of Jesus and his apostles, he argued, witnessed to catholic truth precisely by living according to the Jewish interpretation of Jewish law.â
Fredricksen, Augustine and the Jews, 365.
Fredricksen, Augustine and the Jews, 365.
See Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews, 274â275.
Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews, 275.
âFrom his early years onwards, and to the very end of his life, the Manichaean Christians were a real and powerful force for Augustine. Evidently, they were also considered to be a most dangerous force. One will not ï¬nd in Augustineâs oeuvre expressions similar to the very derogatory words, and even invectives, which he time and again uttered in denouncing his former fellow believers.â Johannes van Oort, âManichean Christians in Augustineâs Life and Work,â Church History and Religious Culture 90 (2010): 545.
Augustine, Confessions, vol. 1, eds. James J. OâDonnell (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), 26 (III, 6). âItaque incidi in homines superbe delirantes, carnales, nimis et loquaces, in quorum ore laquei diaboli et viscum confectum commixtione syllabarum nominis tui et domini Iesu Christi et paracleti consolatoris nostri spiritus sancti. haec nomina non recedebant de ore eorum, sed tenus sono et strepitu linguae; ceterum cor inane veriIâ (Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. R.S. Pine-Coffin (London: Penguin, 1961), 60). On the Manichaean audience of the Confessiones that is ânever far from Augustineâs thoughtsâ, see Annemaré Kotzé, Augustineâs Confessions. Communicative Purpose and Audience (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004), 88. Kotzé, however, claims that Augustineâs hostility is aimed against Manichaean theology, but less against Manicheans who are (as himself) possible subjects of conversion: â[T]here are many instances in this work where the attitude displayed towards a potential Manichaean reader is much less harsh than the attitude displayed towards Manichaean dogma.â (ibid., 199)
On the pejorative labels Donatism and Pelagianism, see Shaw, Sacred Violence, 5 and 562.
On the emergence of the conflict with Pelagianism, see Shawâs malicious but probably realistic description: âWhat a bishop like Augustine needed was a western Mediterranean heresy, one that had roots in his own worldâa burning controversy that would be played out on his own ground, in his own language, and to which his knowledge and his role would be central. If he wished ever to be known outside of his small world, as any American businessman would say, Augustine would have to reposition himself in the marketplace. A battle against a Mediterranean-wide heresy would provide the grounds on which his important ideas would finally receive a worthy audience. There was every compulsion for such men, if not actually invent a heresy, at least to be complicit in creating it. Most unfortunately for Pelagius, he was the wrong man at the right time.â (Shaw, Sacred Violence, 313)
See Wilhelm Geerlings, âAugustinus. Lehrer der Gnade,â in Theologen der christlichen Antike, eds. Wilhelm Geerlings (Darmstadt: WBG, 2002), 148.
See Kurt Flasch, Augustin. Einführung in sein Denken (Stuttgart: Reclam 1994), 8: âAugustin ist 76 Jahr alt geworden. Nie war er reiner Theoretiker. Er reagierte denkend auf seine Erfahrungen in einer rasch verfallenden geschichtlichen Welt. Er wuÃte selbst, daà er sich gewandelt hatte. Er nannte eines seiner letzten Bücher Revisionen (Retractationes). Er schrieb es, um seine Leser anzuleiten, seine Bücher als Zeugnisse einer Entwicklung zu verstehen.â
Jason David BeDuhn, Augustineâs Manichaean Dilemma, 2. Making a âCatholicâ Self, 388â401 C.E., (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 403â404.
On the long and extensive, perhaps even obsessive struggle with Manichaeism, see van Oort, âManichean Christians in Augustineâs Life and Work,â 540: âIt is diï¬cult to ï¬nd fundamental aspects of the Manichaean myth, ethic, cult, and Church organization which are not mentioned in some form or another by Augustine.â
BeDuhn stresses the Manichaean heritage in Augustineâs thinking, claiming that Manichaean thought not only served as a position to demarcate against: âNever wavering from his commitment to the âCatholicâ Church, and never ceasing to offer an anti-Manichaean position, Augustine found it necessary not to cut loose what he considered valid and valuable insights into the human condition to be found in the Christian tradition, just because the Manichaeans grasped and emphasized them in a way âNiceneâ Christians up to that point had neglected to do.â (BeDuhn, âAugustineâs Manichaean Dilemma 2,â 2)
BeDuhn, âAugustineâs Manichaean Dilemma 2,â 5.
See chapter on Tradition, also compare the chapter on Dynamics and Stability.
Shaw even claims that Augustine in his reflections on self-killing in fact created a special kind of (quintessentially bad) death (Shaw, Sacred Violence, 769).
Augustinus, De vera religione/ Ãber die wahre Religion (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1991), 38.
De vera religione 38.
See the (still) most sustained phenomenology of death: âDas Nur-noch-Vorhandene ist âmehrâ als ein lebloses materielles Ding. Mit ihm begegnet ein des Lebens verlustig gegangenes Unlebendiges.â (Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Neske, 1986, 238)
See David G. Hunter, âAugustine on the Body,â in A Companion to Augustine, ed. Mark Vessey (Malden: Blackwell, 2012), 360.
Aurelius Augustinus, Der Gottesstaat/ De civitate Dei. Erster Band Buch IâXIV (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1979), 854 (XIII, 6). âQuapropter quod adtinet ad corporis mortem, id est separationem animae a corpore, cum eam patiuntur, qui morientes appellantur, nulli bona est. Habet enim asperum sensum et contra naturam vis ipsa, qua utrumque divellitur, quod fuerat in vivente coniunctum atque consertum, quamdiu moratur, donec omnis adimatur sensus, qui ex ipso inerat animae et carnisque complex.â Saint Augustine, City of God, trans. by Henry Bettenson (London: Penguin, 2003), 515.
De vera religione 38.
See De civitate Dei XIII/20, 886: âNon enim, sicut Platoni visum est, corpora oblivione desiderant, sed potius, quia meminerunt quid sibi ab eo sit promissum, qui neminem fallit, qui eis etiam de capillorum suorum integritate securitatem dedit, resurrctionem corporum, in quibus multa dura perpessi sunt, nihil in eis ulterius tale sensuri desiderabiliter et patienter expectant.â
De civitate Dei XIII/3, 916. âNam corruptio corporis, quae adgravat animam, non peccati primi est causa, sed poena; nec caro corruptibilis animan peccatricem, sed anima peccatrix fecit esse corruptibilem carnem.â Transl. Bettenson, 551.
De civitate Dei XIV/3, 916. âVerum tamen qui omnia mala animae ex corpore putant accidisse, in errore sunt.â Transl. Bettenson, 551. See also Aurelius Augustinus, Der Gottesstaat/ De civitate Dei, Zweiter Band Buch XVâXXII (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1979), 594 (XX/20) on the difficulty to understand the process of resurrection. âWe have to believe in it though we cannot properly understand itâ, Augustine argues. âQuo modo autem sit futurum, qoud nunc pro nostrae ratiunculae viribus utcumque concicimus, tunc erit potius, ut nosse possimus. Resurrectionem quippe mortuorum futuram et in carne, quando Christus venturus est vivos iudicaturus et mortuos, oportet, si Christiani esse volumus, ut credamus; sed non ideo de hac re inanis est fides nostra, si, quem ad modum future sit, perfecte conprehendere non valemus.â Compare also De musica VI concerning the question if the soul suffers from the body: â[â¦] videtur mihi anima, cum sentit in corpore, non ab illo aliquid pati, sed in eius passionibus attentius agree, et has actiones, sive faciles propter convenientiam, sive difficiles propter inconvenientiam, non eam latere, et hoc totum est, quod sentire dicitur.â Aurelius Augustinus, De musica. Bücher I und VI. Vom ästhetischen Urteil zur metaphysischen Erkenntnis (Hamburg: Meiner, 2002), 90
De civitate Dei XXII/ 4 (752): âNam cum Herculem et Romulum ex hominibus deos esse factos asseveraret: âQuorum non corpora, inquit, sunt in caelum elata; neque enim natura pateretur, ut id quod esset e terra nisi in terra maneret.â Haec est magna ratio sapientium, quorum Dominus novit cogitations, quoniam vanae sunt.â
Hunter, âAugustine on the Body,â 356.
In his struggle against Faustus, Fredriksen argues, Augustine, defending traditional Jewish praxis, emphasized the necessity of seeing flesh as vital to spirit, pointing out that Christ was God in a male human body. Fredricksen, Augustine and the Jews, 317.
See Fredriksen, âVile Bodies,â 86.
Put into philosophical âjargonâ: âIm trauernd-gedenkenden Verweilen bei ihm sind die Hinterbliebenen mit ihm, in einem Modus der ehrenden Fürsorge [â¦] In solchem Mitsein mit dem Toten ist der Verstorbene selbst nicht mehr faktisch âdaâ. Mitsein meint jedoch immer Miteinandersein in derselben Welt. Der Verstorbene hat unsere âWeltâ verlassen und zurückgelassen. Aus ihr her können die Bleibenden noch mit ihm sein.â Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 238.
âJe angemessener das Nichtmehrdasein des Verstorbenen phänomenal gefaÃt wird, umso deutlicher zeigt sich, daà solches Mitsein mit dem Toten gerade nicht das eigentliche Zuendegekommensein des Verstorbenen erfährt.â (Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 238â239)
See chapter on the Transcendence/Immanence Distinction.
Burkhard Gladigow, âNaturae deus humanae mortalis. Zur sozialen Konstruktion des Todes in römischer Zeit,â in Leben und Tod in den Religionen. Symbol und Wirklichkeit, ed. Gunther Stephenson (Darmstadt: WBG, 1980), 129â130.
See Arnold van Gennep, Ãbergangsriten (Les rites de passage) (Frankfurt/ New York: Campus, 2005), 158.
âMala mors putanda non est, quam bona vita praecesserit. Neque enim facit malam mortem, nisi quod sequitur mortem.â De civitate Dei I/11, 26/28. âDeath is not to be regarded as a disaster, when it follows on a good life, for the only thing that makes death an evil is what comes after death.â Transl. Bettenson, 20.
See Christoph Horn, Augustinus (München: Beck, 1995), 47. The vectorial character is explained by pointing at the fact that the human being is created by God towards him (fecisti nos ad te). This character also comprises a dynamic element as the human heart is restless until it finally reaches its ultimate goal (inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te).
See chapter on Dynamics and Stability.
See chapter on Attraction.
Augustine, Confessions, 3 (I,1). Following OâDonnellâs commentary one might say that the âheartâ is the space of contact within the individual, not at last in the sense that it most explicitly resonates with the impact of contact with the (sinful) outside world: âCor in A. is a word whose use is demonstrably influenced by contact with its scriptural employment; it is in A. an expression for the indivisible, authentic centre of human life, where the tensions of a sinful world are most clearly felt.â (James J. OâDonnell, Augustine: Confessions II. Commentary on Books 1â7 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), 13)
In his ârevisionâ of De vera religione Augustine himself writes: âMaxime tamen contra duas naturas Manicheorum liber hic loquitur.â (De vera religione, 188)
âNon nunc agitur quis eorum senserit verius, sed certe illud satis, quantum mihi videtur, apparet: aliud eos in religione suscepisse cum populo et aliud eodem ipso populo audiente defendisse privatim.â (De vera religione 4)
â[â¦] Augustine defined himself against an otherness of which he had once been a part, developing his adopted faith [â¦] most intently in those areas where he perceived a crucial contrast to his former commitments. For the first time, he engaged Manichaeism as the explicit âotherâ of his intellectual discourse. His treatise on True Religion provided the keystone that held together and capped this project through its dedication to a Manichean and its systematic explanation of how philosophical and religious commitments were coordinated in Augustineâs adopted system. Its anti-Manichaean themes serve as an ever-present subtext to a primarily positive statement of Augustineâs new creed.â BeDuhn, âAugustineâs Manichaean Dilemma 2,â 33.
Kurt Flasch, âNachwort,â in Augustinus, De vera religione/ Ãber die wahre Religion (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1991), 217.
Flasch, âNachwort,â 224.
De vera religione, 176.
See chapter on Attraction.
De vera religione, 178.
Ramsay MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 111.
âThe usual picture is of fourth- and fifth century bishops struggling against the cult of the dead, which they stigmatized as a pagan practice in which newly converted Christians indulged. We owe this picture largely to Augustine.â (Ãric Rebillard, âThe Church, the Living, and the Dead,â in A Companion to Late Antiquity, ed. Philip Rousseau (Chichester: Blackwell, 2009), 225)
Compare Hans-Peter Hasenfratz, âTotenkult,â in Handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe. Band V: Säkularisierung-Zwischenwesen, eds. Hubert Cancik, Burkhard Gladigow, and Karl-Heinz Kohl (Stuttgart/ Berlin/ Köln: Kohlhammer, 2001).
See Robin M. Jensen, âDining with the Dead. From the Mensa to the Altar in Christian Late Antiquity,â in Commemorating the Dead. Text and Artefact in Context, eds. Laurie Brink, O.P. and Deborah Green (Berlin/ New York: De Gruyter, 2008). Jensen describes the meals at the graves as later being transformed into the practice of an Eucharist at the Grave in Christian times.
Rebillard, The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity, 143.
See Flasch, âNachwort,â 215: âSie [the text De vera religione] beschwört, das Lebendige höher zu stellen als tote Sachen, den Geist höher zu werten als das dumpfe Leben.â
Rebillard, The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity, 146. On Augustinâs own attitude towards the parentalia, see Zangré, Les rites funéraires, 253â279.
De vera religione 178.
Eric Robertson Dodds, Heiden und Christen in einem Zeitalter der Angst (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985), 113.
Fox, Augustine, 398.
See Horn, Augustinus, 114.
Miikka Ruokanen, Theology of Social Life in Augustineâs De civitate Dei (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 158.
John Marenbon, Pagans and Philosophers. The Problem of Paganism from Augustine to Leibniz (Princeton/ Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 23.
De civitate Dei I, Praefatio.
Ruokanen, Theology of Social Life in Augustineâs De civitate Dei, 26.
De civitate Dei XIX, 13 (474). âOrdo est parium dispariumque rerum sua cuique loca tribuens dispositio.â (transl. Bettenson, 870).
De civitate Dei I/1 (2/4). âHuc usque cruentus saeviebat inimicus, ibi accipiebat limitem trucidatoris furor, illo ducebantur a miserantibus hostibus, quibus etiam extra ipsa loca pepercerant, ne in eos incurrerent, qui simile misericordiam non habebant.â Transl. Bettenson, 6.
De civitate Dei I/1 (4).
â[â¦] quod autem novo more factum est, quod invisitata rerum facie inmanitas barbara tam mitis apparuit, ut amplissimae basilicae implendae populo cui parceretur eligerentur et decernerentur, ubi nemo feriretur, unde nemo raperetur, quo liberandi multi a miserantibus hostibus ducerentur, unde captivandi ulli nec a crudelibus hostibus abducerentur [â¦]â (De civitate Dei 1/7 (12/14)).
De civitate Dei I/1 (4).
âQuocirca proposito animi permanente, per quod etiam corpus sanctificari meruit, nec ipsi corpori aufert sanctitatem violentia libidinis alienae, quam servat preserverantia continentiae suae.â (De civitate Dei I/18 (40)).
On the concrete religious contexts of Augustineâs ideas about self-killing (âThe new attitude was forged in the throes of the violent sectarian conflicts in Africa in the first decades of the fifth century, in which self-killing had a prominent role.â) see Shaw, Sacred violence, 728â730.
See De civitate Dei I/19 (42/44): âHoc fecit illa Lucretia; illa, illa sic praedicta Lucretia innocentem, castam, vim perpessam Lucretiam insuper interemit.â Compare Rosen, Augustinus, 165.
Compare also Rosen, Augustinus, 168.
De civitate Dei I/12 (28).
De civitate Dei I/12 (28). âMulta itaque corpora Christianorum terra non texit, sed nullum eorum quisquam a caelo et terra separavit, quam totam implet praesentia sui, qui novit unde resuscitet quod creavit.â Transl. Bettenson, 21.
De civitate Dei I/12 (28). âProinde ista omnia, <id est> curatio funeris, condition sepulturae, pompa exequiarum, magis sunt vivorum solacia quam subsidia mortuorum.â Transl. Bettenson, 21.
The Augustine caring society (âSolidargemeinschaftâ (J. LeGoff)) between the living and the dead refers to the name, but not to the body of the deceased, which is in community with God.
Seneca quotes Theodorus: â⦠nam quod ad sepulturam pertinent, o te ineptum, si putas mea interesse supra terram an infra putrescam.â Seneca, De tranquillitate animi/ Ãber die Ausgeglichenheit der Seele, trans. and ed. Heinz Gunermann (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1984), 62.
See also Fredricksen, Augustine and the Jews, 335.
De civitate Dei I/13 (30). âNec ideo tamen contemnenda et abicienda sunt corpora defunctorum maximeque iustorum atque fidelium, quibus tamquam organis et vasis ad omnia bona opera sancta usus est Spiritus.â Transl. Bettenson, 22.
On Augustineâs attitude towards the care of the body, see Rebillard, The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity, 87â88.
âHaec enim non ad ornamentum vel adiutorium, quod adhibetur extrinsecus, sed ad ipsam naturam hominis pertinent.â (De civitate Dei I/13 (30)) On the significance of the figure of Tobias for late antique Christian discussion of burial duties, see Rebillard, The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity, 101.
De cura pro mortuis gerenda, 439.
De civitate Dei I/13 (30/32). âVerum istae auctoritates non hoc admonent, qoud insit ullus cadaveribus sensus, sed ad Dei providentiam, cui placent etiam talia pietatis officia, corpora quoque mortuorum pertinere significant propter fidem resurrectionis astruendam.â Transl. Bettenson, 23.
Compare the chapter on Secret.
Rose, Augustine on the Relations between the Living and the Deceased, 17. As for the text of De cura pro mortuis gerenda, I shall, in the following refer to this extensive commentary on the work.
Johnson, âPagan-Christian Burial Practices of the Fourth Century,â 47.
Paulinus von Nola, Epistolae/ Briefe, vol. I-III (Freiburg: Herder 1998), here: vol. I, 158.
âO lucerna digne super candelabrum ecclesiae posita, quae late catholicis urbibus de septiformi lychno pastum oleo laetitiae lumen effundens densas licet haereticorum caligines discutis et lucem veritatis a confusione tenebrarum splendore clarifici sermonis enubilas.â Paulinus, Epistulae I, 156/158.
See Rose, Augustine on the Relations between the Living and the Deceased, 33.
See Matthias Skeb, âEinleitung,â in Paulinus von Nola, Epistolae/ Briefe, (Freiburg: Herder, 1998), vol. I, 93â95.
Peter Brown, The Care of the Saints. Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (London/ Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), 10â11.
Brown, The Cult of the Saints, 55. âThus, when Paulinus writes about his relationship with Saint Felix, he pointedly and lovingly transfers to a dead human being all the sense of intimate involvement with an invisible companion that men in previous generations had looked for in a relationship with the non-human figures of gods, daimÅnes, or angels.â (Ibid.)
â[â¦] quaerens a me, utrum prosit cuique post mortem, quod corpus eius apud sancti alicuius memoriam sepelitur.â De cura pro mortuis gerenda, 75. See Skeb, âEinleitung,â 68: âDas Faktum, daà Paulinus sein mönchisches Leben gerade an einem Reliquiengrab führte, das das Zentrum eines offiziellen Wallfahrtsortes bildete, hat seine historische Voraussetzung in der engeren Verbindung zwischen Kloster und Kirche im westlichen Mönchstum und seine theologische in Paulinusâ parallelisierendem Verständnis von asketischer Nachfolge (geistlichem Kampf) und Wunderheilung, die sich beide am Grab eines asketischen und darum wundertätigen Heiligen, Felix, ereigneten.â As such, the grave of Felix and the relics of the saint established Paulinusâs new home and a new family: âDer heilige Felix wird für Paulinus die neue Heimat, er stiftet eine neue Familienbindung.â (ibid., 70) Rose relies Paulinusâ interest on the issue to a personal family catastrophe: âDuring this second Spanish journey a son was born to Paulinus and Therasia, a child described years later as exoptata diu suboles, âa child dearly desiredâ. This son, Celsus, died after only one week; his parents buried him in Complutum, right beside the graves of the martyrs Justus and Pastor. In carm. 31 Paulinus mentions the burial of his son ad sanctos.â Rose, Augustine on the Relations between the Living and the Deceased, 30.
Rebillard, âThe Church, the Living, and the Dead,â 224.
Rebillard, however, stresses that in late antique times the role of the Church was not yet as extensive or as well-defined as in later times: âIn Late Antiquity, relations between the living and the dead were achieved for the most part without the intervention of church representatives. The role of the clergy as intermediaries between the living and the dead did not become exclusive before the twelfth century, when every Christian had to receive upon his death the viaticumâthe Eucharist for the dyingâin order to be admitted to the cemetery and benefit from the prayers offered by the Church for his remembrance.â Rebillard, âThe Church, the Living, and the Dead,â 220.
On the dating of the work, see Rose, Augustine on the Relations between the Living and the Deceased, 26â27.
Rose scrutinizes the relation of De cura pro mortuis gerenda to the Confessiones as follows: âIt is difficult to examine the opinion on burial and commemoration prayers Augustine laid down in cura mort., without taking into account the details he recorded in his writings concerning death in his inner circle. In cura mort., Augustine emphasizes the importance of finding rest for the soul; prayer for the souls of the dead is one of the most important ways in which the surviving relatives may take care of the dead. Burial of the body is also important but is secondary to the care for the soul. The description in conf. 9 (written 397â401 CE) of his mother Monicaâs death matches in several respects the view Augustine expresses in cura mort. At her deathbed, Monica refused to grieve over the fact that she would not be buried next to her late husband, Patricius, in Thagaste. A careful comparison between Monicaâs utterances in conf. 9 and Augustineâs opinion in cura mort. gives room to the view that in conf. Augustine deliberately depicts Monica as an example of fearlessness with regard to physical death.â Rose, Augustine on the Relations between the Living and the Deceased, 24.
âToo much paganism, Augustine charged, had already warped Christiansâ expectations and had transformed Christianâs funerals into raucous celebrations.â Peter Iver Kaufman, âAugustine, Martyrs, and Misery,â Church History 63 (1994), 4. Brown, however, suggests that Augustine was more concerned with the social function of feasting at the grave that is with privatization and social divisiveness of such practices than with its supposed superstitious content: âHe was, therefore, prepared to accept some form of feasting as long as it did not become too competitive, exclusive, or an occasion for a family to flaunt the extent of its own dependents.â Brown, The Cult of the Saints, 35. On the banning of funeral banquets and Augustineâs part in it, see Johnson, âPagan-Christian Burial Practices of the Forth Century,â 47.
See Rose, Augustine on the Relations between the Living and the Deceased, 75â76. See also ibid., 42: âIn fact, Augustineâs interpretation of depositio ad sanctos centres on the intensity of the prayers said by the relatives of the dead. In the case of the young Cynegius, buried by Paulinus in the vicinity of the memoria of Felix at Nola, the place of burial may serve to intensify the prayers by Cynegiusâ mother Flora; this effect of the location of burial on her prayers would be optimal if she has his place of burial near the memorial of Felix in mind.â
As he, in fact, did with regard to the practice of feasting at the graves, thus accommodating it with Christian ideas; see Johannes Quasten, ââVetus Supersitio et Nova Religioâ. The Problem of Refrigerium in the Ancient Church of North Africa,â The Harvard Theological Review 33 (1940): 262.
Hunter, âAugustine on the Body,â 364.
These are, consequently, the most dangerous dead who may haunt the living. See van Gennep, Ãbergangsriten, 154.
De cura pro mortuis gerenda, 188, 191.
On Augustineâs use of these biblical lines, see Rose, Augustine on the Relations between the Living and the Deceased, 199 f.
De cura pro mortuis gerenda 153.
âuerum istae auctoritates non hoc admonent, quod insit ullus cadaueribus sensus, sed ad dei prouidentiam, cui placent etiam talia pietatis officia, corpora quoque mortuorum pertinere significant propter fidem resurrectionis astruendam.â (De cura pro mortuis gerenda, 141).
âprofecto etiam prouisus sepeliendis corporibus apud memorias sanctorum locus bonae affectionis humanae est erga funera suorum.â De cura pro mortuis gerenda, 149.
âcum itaque recolit animus, ubi sepultum sit carissimi corpus, et occurrit locus nomine martyris uenerabilis, eidem martyri animam dilectam commendat recordantis et precantis affectus.â De cura pro mortuis gerenda, 162. On this point, see Kaufman, âAugustine, Martyrs, and Misery,â 7.
See chapter on Dynamics and Stability.
âet illic corpore posito recordatus locus sanctus eum qui praecesserat renouat et auget affectum.â De cura pro mortuis gerenda, 175.
â[â¦] portitur ille Charon; hi, quos vehit unda, sepulti./ nec ripas datur horrendas et rauca fluenta/ transportare prius, quam sedibus ossa quierunt.â Vergil, Aeneis, ed. and trans. Gerhard Fink (Düsseldorf/ Zürich: Artemis & Winkler, 2005), 262.
De cura pro mortuis gerenda, 226. Another example is the topography of Egyptian religion, compare van Gennep, Ãbergangsriten, 152.
In this sense, the description of the inversion of the antique opposition between the dead and the holy by Philippe Ariès is quite fitting. Ariès suggests that the corpse of a Christian as such creates a religious space, though that space to Augustine does not emerge around it but is located in the dead body as such as an empty directed space that might be vessel for the Holy Spirit. See Philippe Ariès, Geschichte des Todes (München: dtv, 1982), 57. See also the chapter on Secret.
See Kurt Flasch, âEinleitung,â in Augustinus, Bekenntnisse, translated, annotated and edited by Kurt Flasch and Burkhard Mojsisch, pp. 5â31 (Stuttgart: Reclam 1989), 10.
Flasch, âEinleitung,â 12.
Johannes Brachtendorf, ââ⦠damit sie weinen lernen im Tal der Tränenâ. Augustin und die christliche Rehabilitation der Affekte,â in Unruhig ist unser Herz. Interpretationen zu Augustins Confessiones, ed. Michael Fiedrowicz (Trier: Paulinus, 2004), 124. See also Johannes Brachtendorf, Augustins âConfessionesâ (Darmstadt: WBG, 2005), 87. Werpehowski considers Augustineâs account of his emotions while reading about the death of Dido and Monicaâs grief over her son to be setting up a symbolic structure within which the accounts of sorrow over the loss of his friend and his mother might, furthermore, be located. William Werpehowski, âWeeping at The Death of Dido: Sorrow, Virtue, and Augustineâs âConfessionsâ,â The Journal of Religious Ethics 19 (1991): 181.
Brachtendorf, ââ⦠damit sie weinen lernen im Tal der Tränenâ,â 138.
See the âtypological kinship between the mothers of Augustine and Aeneasâ as scrutinized by Eric J. Ziolkowski, âSt. Augustine: Aeneasâ Antitype, Monicaâs Boy,â Literature & Theology 9 (1995): 1, 10â13.
Miller considers the two accounts as being related to an anthropocentric imaginary on the one hand, and a theocentric imaginary, on the other hand. Richard B. Miller, âEvil, Friendship, and Iconic Realism in Augustineâs âConfessionsâ,â The Harvard Theological Review 104 (2011): 391.
On the question of the autobiographical nature of Confessiones see BeDuhn, âAugustineâs Manichaean Dilemma 2,â 416: âThe Augustine of Confessions is no more or less the ârealâ Augustine than any other of his purposeful rhetorical performances. It is one of many performances of self that Augustine adopted as a stance of self-representation in the context of particular problems and conflicts he wished to engage.â
These were mainly Manichaean ideas: ânam et a fide vera, quam non germanitus et penitus adulescens tenebat, deflexeram eum in superstitiosas fabellas et perniciosas, propter quas me plangebat mater.â Confessions, 35 (IV, 4). Compare Kotzé, Augustineâs Confessions, 201.
Confessions, 35 (IV, 4).
Miller, âEvil, Friendship, and Iconic Realism in Augustineâs âConfessionsâ,â 393.
â[â¦] temptavi apud illum inridere, tamquam et illo inrisuro mecum baptismum, quem acceperat mente atque sensu absentissimus [â¦]â Confessions, 36 (IV, 4).
Confessions, 36 (IV, 4). âexpetebant eum undique oculi mei, et non dabatur. et oderam omnia, quod non haberent eum, nec mihi iam dicere poterant: âecce venietâ, sicut cum viveret, quando absens eraâ, trans. Pine-Coffin, 76.
Confessions, 36 (IV, 4). âQuo dolore contenebratum est cor meum, et quidquid aspiciebam mors erat.â Translation from Augustine, The Confessions, introduction, translation and notes by Maria Boulding, O.S.B., New York: Ney York City Press 1997, 97.
Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes/Gespräche in Tusculum, ed. Ernst August Kirfel (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1997), 338 (IV, 20)
â[â¦] interrogabam animam meam quare tristis esset et quare conturbaret me valde [â¦]â Confessions, 36 (IV, 4).
Confessions, 37 (IV, 7),trans. Pine-Coffin, 78.
Confessions, 36 (IV, 4). factus eram ipse mihi magna quaestio [â¦] Trans. Pine-Coffin, 76.
Van Gennep, Ãbergangsriten, 143â144.
Confessions, 37/38 (IV, 7). â[â¦] vanum phantasma et error meus erat deus meus. si conabar eam ibi ponere, ut requiesceret, per inane labebatur et iterum ruebat super me, et ego mihi remanseram infelix locus, ubi nec esse possem nec inde recedere. quo enim cor meum fugeret a corde meo? quo a me ipso fugerem? quo non me sequererâ Trans. Pine-Coffin, 78.
Augustineâs notion of sin âas a retreat into the privacy of self-absorptionâ thus, definitely plays a role in his description of his emotional reaction to his friendâs death. Hunter, âAugustine on the Body,â 357.
See Brachtendorf, Augustins âConfessionesâ, 85.
BeDuhn, âAugustineâs Manichaean Dilemma 2,â 329.
Confessions 113 (IX/10). âImpendente autem die quo ex hac vita erat exitura (quem diem tu noveras ignorantibus nobis), provenerrat, ut credo, procurante te occultis tuis modis, ut ego et ipsa soli staremus, incumbentes ad quondam fenestram, unde hortus intra domum quae nos habebat prospectabatur, illic apud Ostia [â¦]â, trans. Pine-Coffin, 196â197.
Confessions 113 (IX/10): âEt adhuc ascendebamus interius cogitando et loquendo et mirando opera tua. Et venimus in mentes nostras et transcendimus eas, ut attingeremus regionem ubertatis indeficientis, ubi pascis Israhel in aeternum veritate pabulo, et ibi vita sapientia est, per quam fiunt omnia ista, et quae fuerunt et quae future sunt, et ipsa non fit, sed sic est ut fuit, et sic erit semper.â Trans. Pine-Coffin, 197.
Fox, Augustine, 356.
Confessions, 110 (IX, 8). âquaerebamus quisnam locus nos utilius haberet servientes tibi: pariter remeabamus in Africam. et cum apud Ostia Tiberina essemus, mater defuncta est,â trans. Pine-Coffin, 192.
Confessions, 114 (IX, 11).
Confessions, 114 (IX, 11). âfrater autem meus quiddam locutus est, quo eam non in peregre, sed in patria defungi tamquam felicius optaret,â trans. Pine-Coffin, 199.
Confessions, 114 (IX, 11). âvideâ ait, âquid dicit.â et mox ambobus: âponiteâ inquit, âhoc corpus ubicumque. nihil vos eius cura conturbet. tantum illud vos rogo, ut ad domini altare memineritis mei, ubiubi fueritis,â trans. Pine-Coffin, 199.
James J. OâDonnell, Augustine: Confessions III. Commentary on Books 8â13 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), 138.
Confessions, 115 (IX, 11). â[â¦] quanta cura semper aestuasset de sepulchro quod sibi providerat et praeparaverat iuxta corpus viri sui. [â¦] ut coniuncta terra amborum coniugum terra tegeretur,â trans. Pine-Coffin, 199.
Confessions, 115 (IX, 11). âânihilâ, inquit, âlonge est deo, neque timendum est, ne ille non agnoscat in fine saeculi unde me resuscitet.ââ, trans. Pine-Coffin, 200.
See Jonathan Z. Smith, âHere, There, and Anywhere,â in Relating Religion. Essays in the Study of Religion (Chicago/ London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), 330. The âtranscendence of earth as a goalâ, as Smith put it, gave âcomparative advantage to a religion of âanywhereâ.â
See Flasch, Augustin, 252. Compare also Flasch, âEinleitung,â 24â30.
See Fox, Augustine, 360.
Confessions, 116 (IX, 12). âCum ecce corpus elatum est, imus, redimus sine lacrimis. nam neque in eis precibus quas tibi fudimus, cum offerretur pro ea sacrificium pretii nostri iam iuxta sepulchrum, posito cadavere priusquam deponeretur, sicut illic fieri solet, nec in eis ergo precibus flevi, sed toto die graviter in occulto maestus eram [â¦],â trans. Pine-Coffin, 201.
Smith, To Take Place, 103.
See Horn, Augustinus, 47. Compare also Brachtendorf, Augustins âConfessionesâ, 199â200 who connects the proper way of uti with spatial reconfiguration: âAugustinus hat gelernt, auch sich selbst zu âgebrauchenâ, d.h. sich nicht in sich selbst, sondern in Gott zu lieben. Sich selbst âgebrauchenâ impliziert somit eine Dezentrierung des Ich. Weil Augustinus sich selbst âin Gottâ liebt, vermag er âvor Gottâ über sich selbst und für sich selbst zu weinen.â
With reference to OâDonnell, Eduard Iricinchi has stressed a corresponding point related to Augustineâs former convictions: âIn the Confessions, Augustine chronicled the death of his Manichaean self.â The death of his mother and the action Augustine performs, then, correspond to the death of the Manichean within and his burial within the Confessiones. Eduard Iricinchi, âTam pretiosi codices vestri. Hebrew Scriptures and Persian Books in Augustineâs Anti-Manichaean Writings,â in Revelation, Literature, and Community in Late Antiquity, eds. Philippa Townsend and Moulie Vidus (Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 2011), 160.
Confessions, 118 (IX, 13). âet inspira, domine meus, deus meus, inspira servis tuis, fratribus meis, filiis tuis, dominis meis, quibus et corde et voce et litteris servio, ut quotquot haec legerint, meminerint ad altare tuum Monnicae, famulae tuae, cum Patricio, quondam eius coniuge, per quorum carnem introduxisti me in hanc vitam, quemadmodum nescio,â trans. Pine-Coffin, 204â205.
See also Fox, Augustine, 362.
See Miller, âEvil, Friendship, and Iconic Realism in Augustineâs âConfessionsâ,â 392. To Miller, Augustine argues for an iconic perspective of the universe rather than an idolatrous one, mutable goods pointing beyond their surface to objective values that, provide order and direction to human affection.
Rebillard, The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity, 128.
See Johnson, âPagan-Christian Burial Practices of the Fourth Century,â 59.
See Quasten, ââVetus Superstitio et Nova Religioâ,â 256. See also Rebillard, The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity, X. With regard to Augustineâs home province, Rebillard states: âAt the request of the family, the clergy might have participated in the funeral procession, but there is no positive evidence for this in North Africa.â (Rebillard, âChristians and their Many Identities in Late Antiquity,â 69)
Rebillard, âThe Church, the Living, and the Dead,â 223.
Johnson, âPagan-Christian Burial Practices of the Fourth Century,â 49.
Rebillard, âThe Church, the Living, and the Dead,â 221.
See Markschies, Das antike Christentum, 87.
Confessions 115 (IX, 12).
On the custom and Augustineâs unique position toward it, see Zangré, Les rites funéraires, 58: âLe fait de fermer les yeux dâun mort est une practique qui relève du geste funéraire, à ne pas assimiler automatiquement au rite. Ce geste traverse toutes les époques et nâest donc pas lâapannage evironnement pagano-chrétien du 3ème au 5ème siècle. La littérature païenne à laquelle nous nous référons nâattache pas de sens particulier à ce geste. Du côté de la littérature chrétienne dâAfrique du Nord, Augustin est le seul qui fasse mention de lâexpression. Il nous informe par lâexpression équivalente premere oculos, dans une contexte spécifiquement funeraire, en lui donnant une signification symbolique. Il est aussi le seul qui soit acteur du geste.â
On a similarly adequate and modest behavior of mourning see Paulinus of Nolaâs letter to Augustine: â[â¦] docuisti me in spiritu veritatis salubre modernadi in occiduis mortalibus animi temperamentum, quo et illam beatam matrem et aviam Melanium flevisse carnalem obitum unici filii taciturno quidem luctu, non tamen sicco a maternis lacrimis dolore vidisti. Cuius quidem modestas et graves lacrimas sicut proprior vel aequalior animae eius spiritus altius intellexisti [â¦]â (Paulinus von Nola, Epistulae III, 980, 982).
Confessions, 115 (IX, 12). âtum vero, ubi efflavit extremum, puer Adeodatus exclamavit in planctu atque ab omnibus nobis cohercitus tacuit. hoc modo etiam meum quiddam puerile, quod labebatur in fletus, iuvenali voce, voce cordis, cohercebatur et tacebat,â trans. Pine-Coffin, 200.
â[â¦] confluebat in praecordia mea maestitudo ingens et transfluebat in lacrimas, ibidemque oculi mei violento animi imperio resorbebant fontem suum usque ad siccitatem, et in tali luctamine valde male mihi erat.â Confessions, 115 (IX, 12).
Confessions, 115 (IX, 12). âneque enim decere arbitrabamur funus illud questibus lacrimosis gemitibusque celebrare, quia his plerumque solet deplorari quaedam miseria morientium aut quasi omnimoda extinctio. at illa nec misere moriebatur nec omnino moriebatur. hoc et documentis morum eius et fide non ficta rationibusque certis tenebamus,â trans. Pine-Coffin, 200.
âDie dilectio proximi ist also die konkrete Verwirklichung des Rückbezugs über die Welt hinaus, und in eins damit stöÃt sie den anderen aus der Welt, in der er den Sinn seines Seins sieht. Entsprechend dem Sinn von Sein=Ewig-sein liebt sie den Anderen nicht als moriturus, sondern das in ihm, was ewig ist, sein eigenes Von-wo-aus. [â¦] Der Liebende greift über den Geliebten zu Gott, in dem allein seine Existenz und zugleich seine Liebe ihren Sinn hat. Der Tod ist für die dilectio proximi ohne Bedeutung, denn der Tod, der ihn aus der Welt herausnimmt, tut nur das, was sie von sich aus in der Liebe zu dem Sein, das in ihm als sein Ursprung lebendig ist, ohnehin getan hat.â Hannah Arendt, Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin. Versuch einer philosophischen Interpretation (Berlin/ Wien: Philo, 2003), 103, my translation.
See Gerhard Krieger, ââSelig, wer Dich liebt und den Freund in Dirâ. Augustin und die Freundschaft,â in Unruhig ist unser Herz. Interpretationen zu Augustins Confessiones, ed. Michael Fiedrowicz (Trier: Paulinus, 2004), 52. Krieger quotes Sermon 361: âIlle enim veraciter amat amicum, qui Deum amat in amico, aut quia est in illo, au tut sit amicum in te.â
De vera religione 199.
See chapter on Dynamics and Stability.
Regarding religious spaces the analytical dichotomy of solid and fluid also does not indicate categorical opposition but rather refers to the actual result of a formational and intensifying process in which something momentarily solid becomes a symbol of temporal resistance and is reflected as such in object-language considerations. Rau, Räume, 167.
See Rau, Räume, 164.
The (directional) âtopography of the afterlifeâ as expressed in Ancient Chinese grave paintings may be a candidate for further comparison that goes beyond Augustineâs object-language comparison: âHeaven, where the ancestors resided, was up [â¦], not below. The Baoshan evidence likewise suggests that while one or some aspects of the soul were contained by the tomb, others, what we are calling the spirit, did escape. I believe, as do most scholars, that the Mawangdui painting does in fact represent transcendence and a journey out of the tomb [â¦] While one aspect of the deceased [â¦] may have remained with the body in the underworld, there is no question that some other aspect of the deceasedâs identity [â¦] journeyed beyond the tomb up through the gates to the spirit world.â (Constance A. Cook, Death in Ancient China. The Tale of One Manâs Journey (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 132â133).
See chapter on the Transcendence/Immanence Distinction.
Compare on the vector-term of space in Tibetan Buddhism Esler, Effortless Spontaneity, 39.
See chapter on Attraction.
Brown, The Cult of the Saints, 2.
Compare Slaterâs notion of the direction of transcendence: âThe direction of transcendence is vertical rather than horizontal, skyward to eternity rather than ahead to novelty.â To describe the direction of religious space, however, it seems to me preferable to characterize it as vectoral, as a possible combination of both. Peter Slater, The Dynamics of Religion. Continuity and Change in Patterns of Faith (London: SCM Press, 1979), 85.
Confessions, 205 (XIII, 36 and XIII, 38). sabbato vitae aeternae requiescamus in te. [â¦] tu autem bonum nullo indigens bono semper quietus es, quoniam tua quies tu ipse es, trans. Pine-Coffin, 347.
See Ruokanen, Theology of Social Life in Augustineâs De civitate Dei, 148: âThe peace of the city of God is pax perfectissima, and it is an object of Christian hope. In their pilgrimage, the citizens of Godâs city have a relation or reference to this perfect place in faith. Augustine says emphatically that this peace is pax ordinate in fide. Consequently, it can never be transformed into a political or social programme. The transcendental-eschatological peace is, however, the source of reference for the Christian so that all his attitudes and activities may be motivated by that peace.â
On Augustineâs linguistic semiotics, see Neumann, Augustinus 98â103.