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Looking in the Mirror of Augustine's Rule
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
Augustine's Rule is one of the most influential texts in the history of religious life in the West. Those who follow the Rule, whose longest chapter deals with visual asceticism, are to examine themselves in it “as in a mirror.” This paper uses visual theory to explore the meaning of the Rule as a mirror in order to have a new look at the meaning of chastity, self-knowledge, and the gaze.
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- © 2011 The Author. New Blackfriars © 2011 The Dominican Council
References
1 Bartsch, Shadi, The Mirror of the Self: Sexuality, Self-Knowledge, and the Gaze in the Early Roman Empire (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006), p. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 For Bartsch's modification of Foucault, see esp. Mirror of the Self, chap. 5 “Models of Personhood,” pp. 230–81. For her disavowal of engaging Lacan and film theory, see Mirror of the Self, p. 13.
3 Cf. Mirror of the Self, p. 13.
4 Augustine's authorship of the Rule and related monastic documents has been a vexed question, but one carefully studied to much profit in Luc Verheijen, O.S.A., La Règle de saint Augustin, vol. 1 Tradition manuscrite, vol. 2 Recherches historiques (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1967). George Lawless, O.S.A., follows Verheijen's results with a distinctive analysis in Augustine of Hippo and His Monastic Rule (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987)Google Scholar. I am using the critical edition established by Verheijen in vol. 1, pp. 417–37. This is repeated, with only two changes and without the critical apparatus, in Lawless, Augustine of Hippo, pp. 80–103, where a translation is found on the opposite pages. Having consulted published translations, I have made my own translations of ancient texts unless otherwise indicated.
5 Patricia Cox Miller writes, “[P]etitioning the gaze may have been one of the premises of ascetic activity itself.” See her “Desert Asceticism and ‘The Body from Nowhere,’”JECS 2 (1994): 137–153Google Scholar, at p. 138. She supports her claim by citing Brown, Peter, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), p. 327Google Scholar; Harpham, Geoffrey Galt, The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 24 and 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wyschogrod, Edith, Saints and Postmodernism: Revisioning Moral Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 13Google Scholar.
6 Study of ascetical practices can profit from even greater attention to the senses. For the sense of smell, too often neglected, see esp. Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006). While the sense of taste is frequently the subject of comments in ascetical dietary regimens, Augustine's Rule speaks more about vision than food (cf. reg. 3.1-3.5).
7 Reg. 8.1. spiritalis pulchritudinis amatores.
8 Bartsch, Mirror of the Self, p. 17.
9 Cf. Bradley, Ritamary C.H.M., “Backgrounds of the Title Speculum in Medieval Literature,”Speculum 29 (1954): 100–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 102-05.
10 Miles, Margaret R., “‘Facie ad Faciem’: Visuality, Desire, and the Discourse of the Other,”The Journal of Religion 87 (2007): 43–58 at p. 54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 1 Cor 13:12. Videmus nunc per speculum in aenigmate; tunc autem facie ad faciem.
12 Augustine, as it should be noted, also continued the philosophical tradition of considering the soul as a mirror. E.g. Soliloquia. 2.35 for the expression “speculum cogitationis.”
13 The Rule of Saint Augustine: Masculine and Feminine Versions, with introduction and commentary by Tarcisius J. van Bavel, O.S.A. and translation by Raymond Canning, O.S.A. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1984), 119.
14 Possidius, Vita Sancti Aurelii Augustini 28.3 (PL 32, 57). Quique prodesse omnibus volens, et valentibus multa librorum legere, et non valentibus, ex utroque divino Testamento, Vetere et Novo, praemissa praefatione praecepta divina seu vetita ad vitae regulam pertinentia excerpsit, atque ex his unum codicem fecit; ut qui vellet legeret, atque in eo vel quam obediens Deo inobediensve esset, agnosceret: et hoc opus voluit Speculum appellari.
15 Fiedrowicz, Michael, chap. 2, “Speculum et Medicamentum nostrum,” in Psalmus Vox Totius: Studien zu Augustins ‘Enarrationes in Psalmos’ (Freiburg: Herder, 1997), pp. 145–233Google Scholar and general introduction to Expositions of the Psalms 1–32, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/15, trans. and notes by Maria Boulding, O.S.B., ed. John E. Rotelle, O.S.A. (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 13–66, esp. sec. 10, “The Psalms as a Mirror and Remedy of Salvation for the Soul,” pp. 37–43.
16 En. Ps. 103(1).4. posuit tibi speculum scripturam suam; legitur tibi: “beati mundi corde, quoniam ipsi deum uidebunt.” speculum in hac lectione propositum est; uide si hoc es quod dixit; si nondum es, geme ut sis. renuntiabit tibi speculum faciem tuam; sicut speculum non senties adulatorem, sic nec te palpes. hoc tibi ostendit nitor ille quod es; uide quod es; et si tibi displicet, quaere ut non sis.
17 Reg 8.1-2. Donet dominus, ut obseruetis haec omnia cum dilectione, tamquam spiritalis pulchritudinis amatores et bono Christi odore de bona conuersatione flagrantes, non sicut serui sub lege, sed sicut liberi sub gratia constituti. Ut autem uos in hoc libello tamquam in speculo possitis inspicere, ne per obliuionem aliquid neglegatis, semel in septimana uobis legatur. Et ubi uos inueneritis ea quae scripta sunt facientes, agite gratias domino bonorum omnium largitori. Ubi autem sibi quicumque uestrum uidet aliquid deesse, doleat de praeterito, caueat de futuro, orans ut ei debitum dimittatur et in temptationem non inducatur.
18 Cf. Bavel, T. J. van O.S.A., “The Evangelical Inspiration of the Rule of St Augustine,”The Downside Review 93 (1975): 83–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
19 Cf. Clark, Elizabeth A., Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), esp. 60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Clark begins her introduction, “Reading Renunciation explores the exegetical problem confronting early Christian ascetic writers who wished to ground their renunciatory program in the Bible. Their ‘problem’ arose because the Bible only sporadically supported their agenda” (p. 3). Someone could likewise allege that the Bible only sporadically supported the credenda of the Rule of faith. For the Rule of Benedict, see esp. RB 73.1-3. Basil's Longer Rules convey numerous scriptural references; their opening emphasis on love of God and love of neighbor resonates with Augustine's own predilection in regulating life.
20 Cf. sermo 58.11.13 where Augustine counsels his people to take the Creed as a mirror each day to see if they believe what they say they believe.
21 Ep. 189.8 (to Boniface). Ita ut haec epistula magis tibi sit speculum, ubi, qualis sis, uideas, quam ubi discas, qualis esse debeas. uerum tamen quicquid siue in ista siue in scripturis sanctis inueneris,
22 E.g. Jo. ev. tr. 35.8-9 and conf. 12.13.16. Also, I do not mean to suggest that Augustine considered his writing as on par with the Scriptures. For his belief that the Scriptures are unequalled, see esp. his ep. 82 (to Jerome).
23 Bartsch, Mirror of the Self, p. 30.
24 Reg. 1.2; cf. Acts 4:32a. anima una et cor unum in deum. Van Bavel writes, “All of the other chapters [of Augustine's Rule] can be seen as elaborations and applications of the inspiring principles offered in the first chapter.” See his “‘And honour God in one another’ (Rule of Augustine 1, 8),” inMayer, Cornelius, ed., Homo Spiritalis: Festgabe für Luc Verheijen OSA zu seinem 70. Geburtstag (Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1987), pp. 195–206, at p. 195Google Scholar.
25 Reg. 1.8; cf. Acts 4:32; Rom 15:6; 2 Cor 6:16. Omnes ergo unianimiter et concorditer uiuite, et honorate in uobis inuicem deum cuius templa facti estis.
26 Reg. 4.4. Oculi uestri, et si iaciuntur in aliquam feminarum, figantur in nemine. Neque enim, quando proceditis, feminas uidere prohibemini, sed adpetere, aut ab ipsis adpeti uelle, criminosum est. Nec solo tactu et affectu, sed aspectu quoque, adpetitur et adpetit concupiscentia feminarum. Nec dicatis uos animos habere pudicos, si habetis oculos inpudicos, quia inpudicus oculus inpudici cordis est nuntius. Et cum se inuicem sibi, etiam tacente lingua, conspectu mutuo corda nuntiant inpudica, et secundum concupiscentiam carnis alterutro delectantur ardore, etiam intactis ab inmunda uiolatione corporibus, fugit castitas ipsa de moribus.
27 Michel Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, vol. 2 of The History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), pp. 74–75; cf. Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, 2 and 3.
28 Michel Foucault, The Care of the Self, vol. 3 of The History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), 138. For a comparative study on Foucault and Augustine, see Schuld, J. Joyce, Foucault and Augustine: Reconsidering Power and Love (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003)Google Scholar. For this aspect of sexuality, see esp. the treatment on “The Power of Desiring and Social Configuration,” pp. 85–102.
29 Some other key texts of the Gospel include Matt 6:22 concerning the eye as the lamp of the body and Matt 18:9 concerning an eye that causes one to sin. Neither passage explicitly pertains to sexual sin.
30 Gerald Bonner discusses the example of the monk in Egypt who notices that nuns are along the road. The leader of the women turns to him and says, “If you had been a perfect monk you would not have looked so closely as to see that we were women.”Augustine of Hippo: The Monastic Rules, p. 78; cf. Sayings of the Desert Fathers 4.62, trans. by Owen Chadwick, Western Asceticism (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1958), p. 58. This story is also used in Rousselle, Aline, Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity, trans. Pheasant, Felicia (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), p. 141Google Scholar.
31 Bartsch, Mirror of the Self, p. 26.
32 Ep. 83.1 (Seneca: Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, 2, p. 258; Loeb edition). Sic certe vivendum est, tamquam in conspectus vivamus; sic cogitandum, tamquam aliquis in pectus intimum introspicere possit; et potest. Quid enim prodest ab homine aliquid esse secretum? Nihil deo clusum est.
33 Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, vol. 2, Stoicism in Christian Latin Thought through the Sixth Century, Studies in the History of Christian Thought (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985), p. 142. For a detailed study of one Stoic influence on the Rule, see Verheijen, Luc, “The Straw, the Beam, the ‘Tusculan Disputations’ and the ‘Rule’ of Saint Augustine: On a Surprising Augustinian Exegesis,”Augustinian Studies 2 (1971): 17–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
34 Reg. 4.5. Nec putare debet qui in femina figit oculum et illius in se ipse diligit fixum, ab aliis se non uideri, cum hoc facit; uidetur omnino, et a quibus se uideri non arbitrator. Sed ecce lateat et a nemine hominum uideatur, quid faciet de illo desuper inspectore quem latere nihil potest?
35 Possidius, Vita Sancti Aurelii Augustini 26.3.
36 Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Sheridan, Alan (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977), pp. 216–217Google Scholar.
37 For a variety of applications of the gaze to Roman culture, see Fredrick, David, ed., The Roman Gaze: Vision, Power, and the Body (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. some critiques of Foucault in Fredrick's introduction, pp. 1–30.
38 Cf. reg. 8.1.
39 Douglas, Mary, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (London and New York: Routledge Classics, 2003), p. 72Google Scholar.
40 Reg. 4.6. Quando ergo simul estis in ecclesia et ubicumque ubi et feminae sunt, inuicem uestram pudicitiam custodite; deus enim qui habitat in uobis, etiam isto modo uos custodiet ex uobis.
41 Reg. 4.10. Et hoc quod dixi de oculo non figendo etiam in ceteris inueniendis, prohibendis, indicandis, conuincendis, uindicandisque peccatis, diligenter et fideliter obseruetur, cum dilectione hominum et odio uitiorum.
42 Bartsch, Mirror of the Self, pp. 58–59. Cf. Jonas, Hans, “The Nobility of Sight: A Study in the Phenomenology of the Senses,” in The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 135–152Google Scholar.
43 Miles, “‘Facie ad Faciem’: Visuality, Desire, and the Discourse of the Other,” p. 52. Cf. Schuld, Foucault and Augustine, p. 90 in the pithy expression: “Beauty, for Augustine, is always a blessing and a temptation.”
44 Cf. reg. 4.4.
45 Reg. 4.5. Abominatio est domino defigens oculum.
46 Reg. 4.4. Nec solo tactu et affectu, sed aspectu quoque.
47 Reg. 4.8. Si enim frater tuus uulnus haberet in corpore, quod uellet occultare, cum timet secari, none crudeliter abs te sileretur et misericorditer indicaretur? Quanto ergo potius eum debes manifestare, ne perniciosius putrescat in corde?
48 Cf. reg. 8.1.
49 Reg. 4.9. Non enim et hoc fit crudeliter, sed misericorditer, ne contagione pestifera plurimos perdat.
50 Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London and New York: Ark Paperbacks, [originally printed 1966] 1988), p. 3Google Scholar.
51 Douglas, Purity and Danger, pp. 133–134.
52 Leyerle, Blake, “Chrysostom on the Gaze,”JECS 1 (1993): 159–174Google Scholar. To introduce her project's use of feminist film criticism, Leyerle credits: Lauretis, Teresa de, Alice Doesn’t (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Mulvey, Laura, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,”Screen 16 (1975): 6–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Kaplan, E. Ann, Women and Film: Both Sides of the Camera (New York: Metheun, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Newman, Beth, “‘The Situation of the Looker-On’: Gender, Narration, and Gaze in Wuthering Heights,”PLMA 105 (1990): 1037–1038Google Scholar.
53 See also Leyerle, Blake, Theatrical Shows and Ascetic Lives: John Chrysostom's Attack on Spiritual Marriage (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. Chrysostom's use of comedy to describe these monks in chap. 5, “Ridiculous Men,” pp. 100–142.
54 Later interpolations made some changes beyond simply the gender, but recent textual criticism does not allow for these changes. See Lawless, Augustine of Hippo and His Monastic Rule, p. 110. According to Lawless on p. 136, one of the (now discredited) arguments for the Rule originally addressed to women was the reference to the mirror in the Rule's conclusion.
55 This aspect of the Rule may help us to understand more about Augustine's position regarding women. For an insightful study on some of the complexities, see Bonner, Gerald, “Augustine's Attitude to Women and ‘Amicitia’,” in Mayer, Cornelius, ed., Homo Spiritalis: Festgabe für Luc Verheijen OSA zu seinem 70. Geburtstag (Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1987), pp. 259–275Google Scholar.