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Reading Contra Julianum in Light of the City of God
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
Augustine's rejection of pagan virtue in the City of God is often connected to his anti-Pelagian works and so exaggerated. However, Augustine's actual account of pagan virtue, both in the City of God and Contra Julianum, is much more nuanced than is commonly recognized. Augustine connects true virtue to true religio, its end in the beatific vision, and the grace without which it is impossible, and consistently highlights the connection between virtue and worship. Nevertheless, the category of the pagan virtues, habits sufficient to promote the flourishing of Rome, is an important part of Augustinian virtue theory. Attending to the presence of pagan virtue in the City of God shines light on why Augustine repeatedly claims that his theology, and not that of Julian, is most opposed to Manichean claims. The City of God provides useful context for interpreting Augustine's theology of grace in the anti-Pelagian works, and so avoiding an over exaggerated theology of the Fall.
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References
1 Doctr. Chr. II, IX, 14, tr. R.P.H. Green (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 37.
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13 Ibid., XI, 11 and 13.
14 Ibid., XII. 1. For additional consideration of Augustine's theology of creation, see Janet Soskice, “Aquinas and Augustine on Creation and God as ‘Eternal Being’,” New Blackfriars 95, issue 1056 (February, 2014), pp. 190-207.
15 The analogy, like all analogies, limps. Crucially, while the demons were created good, they were never a part of the eschatological heavenly city because that city is constituted by those “predestined to reign with God for all eternity” and the demons were not so predestined (XV, 1). That said, Augustine's eschatology of the two cities should not distract from his treatment in other places of a person's movement from one city to another, from earthly to heavenly. On this point, see James K. Lee's excellent article “Babylon Becomes Jerusalem: The Transformation of the Two Cities in Augustine's Enarrationes in Psalmos,” Augustinian Studies 47, no. 2 (2016), 157-180.
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17 Ibid., XII, 24.
18 Ibid., XII, 25-26.
19 Ibid., XII, 28.
20 Ibid., XII, 28.
21 Ibid., XIV, 1.
22 Cui., XXI, 1.
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25 Idem.
26 Idem.
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28 Ibid., 3, 18.
29 Ep. 138,” 2, 15.
30 Cui., V, 13.
31 Cui., V, 12.
32 Idem.
33 Ibid., V, 20.
34 Ibid., V. 12.
35 Cui., V. 12.
36 Idem.
37 Idem.
38 C. Iul., I, 9, 44. Earlier Augustine makes his reading of the good and bad trees even clearer in affirming that the goodness of human nature is what makes marriage a good; “For that divine teacher certainly does not want us to understand that the tree from which there comes the fruit about which he was speaking is a nature,” I, 8, 38.
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42 New American Bible translation. All scripture citations are taken from the NAB unless otherwise noted.
43 C. Iul., I, 9, 44.
44 Ibid., IV 3, 33.
45 Ibid., I, 9, 44.
46 Idem.
47 Ibid., III, 26, 66.
48 Ibid., IV, 14, 68.
49 C. Iul., IV, 5, 34.
50 Ibid., V, 7, 25.
51 Ibid., V, 16, 59.
52 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, tr. Fathers of The English Dominican Province (Christian Classics: Ave Maria, FL, 1981), III Q. 15 A.4.
53 C. Iul., V, 16, 62.
54 Cui., XIV, 9.
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56 C. Iul., IV, 3, 18.
57 Ibid., IV, 3, 18.
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63 Idem.
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66 Peter Brown, Augustine, 405, citing Contra Julianum III 11, 22. In the specific context at hand, Augustine is citing this event as proof that concupiscence is active even in the old; he is not making an argument about sin, grace, virtue, or another disputed question in theological anthropology in broad brush strokes, but is rather making a particular point, one closely related to questions of biology, that the old still feel sexual desire and can still be lead astray by it.
67 C. Iul., III, 26, 65.