confessions and enchiridion [177]
[274] Cf. Ps. 27:8. [275] The group included Monica, Adeodatus (Augustine's fifteen- year-old son), Navigius (Augustine's brother), Rusticus and Fastidianus (relatives), Alypius, Trygetius, and Licentius (former pupils). [276] A somewhat oblique acknowledgment of the fact that none of the Cassiciacum dialogues has any distinctive or substantial Christian content This has often been pointed to as evidence that Augustine's conversion thus far had brought him no farther than to a kind of Christian Platonism; cf. P. Alfaric, L'Evolution intellectuelle de Saint Augustin (Paris, 1918). [277] The dialogues written during this stay at Cassiciacum: Contra Academicos, De beata vita, De ordine, Soliloquia. See, in this series, Vol. VI, pp. 17-63, for an English translation of the Soliloquies. [278] Cf. Epistles II and III. [279] A symbolic reference to the "cedars of Lebanon"; cf. Isa. 2:12-14; Ps. 29:5. [280] There is perhaps a remote connection here with Luke 10:18- 20. [281] Ever since the time of Ignatius of Antioch who referred to the Eucharist as "the medicine of immortality," this had been a popular metaphor to refer to the sacraments; cf. Ignatius, Ephesians 20:2. [282] Here follows (8-11) a brief devotional commentary on Ps. 4. [283] John 7:39. [284] Idipsum -- the oneness and immutability of God. [285] Cf. v. 9. [286] 1 Cor. 15:54. [287] Concerning the Teacher; cf. Vol. VI of this series, pp. 64- 101. [288] This was apparently the first introduction into the West of antiphonal chanting, which was already widespread in the East. Ambrose brought it in; Gregory brought it to perfection. [289] Cf. S. of Sol. 1:3, 4. [290] Cf. Isa. 40:6; 1 Peter 1:24: "All flesh is grass." See Bk. XI, Ch. II, 3. [291] Ecclus. 19:1. [292] 1 Tim. 5:9. [293] Phil. 3:13. [294] Cf. 1 Cor. 2:9. [295] Ps. 36:9. [296] Idipsum. [297] Cf. this report of a "Christian ecstasy" with the Plotinian ecstasy recounted in Bk. VII, Ch. XVII, 23, above. [298] Cf. Wis. 7:21-30; see especially v. 27: "And being but one, she [Wisdom] can do all things: and remaining in herself the same, she makes all things new." [299] Matt. 25:21. [300] 1 Cor. 15:51. [301] Navigius, who had joined them in Milan, but about whom Augustine is curiously silent save for the brief and unrevealing references in De beata vita-, I, 6, to II, 7, and De ordine, I, 2- 3. [302] A.D. 387. [303] Nec omnino moriebatur. Is this an echo of Horace's famous memorial ode, Exegi monumentum aere perennius . . . non omnis moriar? Cf. Odes, Book III, Ode XXX. [304] 1 Tim. 1:5. [305] Cf. this passage, as Augustine doubtless intended, with the story of his morbid and immoderate grief at the death of his boyhood friend, above, Bk. IV, Chs. IV, 9, to VII, 12. [306] Ps. 101:1. [307] Ps. 68:5. [308] Sir Tobie Matthew (adapted). For Augustine's own analysis of the scansion and structure of this hymn, see De musica, VI, 2:2-3; for a brief commentary on the Latin text, see A.S. Walpole, Early Latin Hymns (Cambridge, 1922), pp. 44-49. [309] 1 Cor. 15:22. [310] Matt. 5:22. [311] 2 Cor. 10:17. [312] Rom. 8:34. [313] Cf. Matt. 6:12. [314] Ps. 143:2. [315] Matt. 5:7. [316] Cf. Rom. 9:15. [317] Ps. 119:108. [318] Cf. 1 Cor. 13:12. [319] Eph. 5:27. [320] Ps. 51:6. [321] John 3:21. [322] 1 Cor. 2:11. [323] 1 Cor. 13:7. [324] Ps. 32:1. [325] Ps. 144:7, 8. [326] Cf. Rev. 8:3-5. "And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints went up before God out of the angel's hand" (v. 4). [327] 1 Cor. 2:11. [328] 1 Cor. 13:12. [329] Isa. 58:10. [330] Rom. 1:20. [331] Cf. Rom. 9:15. [332] One of the pre-Socratic "physiologer." Cf. Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods (a likely source for Augustine's knowledge of early Greek philosophy), I, 10: "After Anaximander comes Anaximenes, who taught that the air is God. . . ." [333] An important text for Augustine's conception of sensation and the relation of body and mind. Cf. On Music, VI, 5:10; The Magnitude of the Soul, 25:48; On the Trinity, XII, 2:2; see also F. Coplestone, A History of Philosophy (London, 1950), II, 51-60, and E. Gilson,