What to say and what not to say

One apparent purpose of language is to inform others of some things. Augustine suggests something even stronger: maybe language has no other real purpose than informing, either others, when we teach them something, or ourselves, when we try to recall something. Apparent counterexamples, like asking, singing or praying, are really nothing of the kind, he assures us. When we ask, we inform someone what we want to know. When we sing merely for our pleasure, we are not enjoying the language, but the music. When we pray audibly, our words are meant to just recall what we desire or to teach others how one should pray - God surely knows already what we want to say.

Language is, Augustine says, made up of words, which are some sort of signs. Of some, it is easy to see what they signify, of others, such as the word “of”, it is not so simple. Indeed, trying to explain the latter kind of words seems quite difficult to do without any words. Still, Augustine notes, some words apparently can be explained without words: I can explain what a wall is, just by pointing at one. Of course, pointing is also a kind of sign. Yet, there seems to be words we can explain without any signs, like walking, which we can explain, if we happen to stand still, by starting to walk.

This consideration leads Augustine to divide words, and indeed, all signs, into two different groups. Firstly, there are words like “word”or “sign”, which refer to something in language or other types of signs. Secondly, there are words that refer to something outside language, like "wall'' or "human". True, Augustine admits, even these words can be used in referring to linguistic things, like when we say that wall has four letters. Still, this kind of a use of a word is not the primary one, Augustine insists, and we can easily decide from the context, whenever a word is used in this secondary manner.

Now Augustine reaches a somewhat paradoxical result that language, which was meant to be used for informing people, never really does that. First of all, Augustine notes, it is the knowledge of real things that we should value over knowledge of words and signs - even though words like filth and vice refer to bad things, it is better that we know what filth and vice are than just knowing what kind of words they are. We are not satisfied with knowing mere words and signs, because these are not the real things.

Problem is that when we use language, we are also offering mere words instead of the real things, Augustine notes. Signs at most point us to the things we want the other person to know also, just like a finger can point to a wall, but not be the wall. In the case of sensible things, we still need to sense things we are meant to be taught. In the case of things we cannot sense, Augustine insists, we still need some sort of inner conviction of what they are like.

Whether it is through senses or through inner conviction, we need to convince ourselves of the truth of something, before we are told what the truth is. In fact, Augustine argues, the supposed teacher can never really teach us anything, since it is we the supposed learners who have to first know and recognise whether what the teacher said is true. It is then what happens inside one’s self that is of importance, when it comes to acquiring knowledge. The only one who could really help in this process, Augustine concludes, is God.

Despite this somewhat sceptical position, Augustine still produced writings meant to inform others what the truth behind everything is. His particular concern is to show that other contenders for the status of true knowledge, whether they be philosophers or other religious groups, fall short of the goal, reached by the type of Christianity Augustine himself endorsed. Indeed, he thinks that these erroneous positions do the favour of highlighting the truth by showing in how many ways one can distance from it. These errors are created when humans replace truth with their own phantasies. Fortunately, Augustine says, God had surrounded us with reminders of our true origin.

This true origin, Augustine says, is simply God as the source of all existence and life. The closer to God things are, the more existent they are. Death and destruction are then not caused by God, but instead by losing this connection to God.

Now, Augustine insists, matter is something very far removed from God, as it requires something alive to animate it. Thus, turning away from God toward matter means essentially subjugating oneself to death, because one has replaced an immutable and endless source of life with something that will ultimately itself fall apart. Human being's final fate will be decided by whether they are able to wrench their attention from the material world back to their eternal source.

Humans have not turned away from God through some external cause, like a fever, but have done it all voluntarily. Thus, they have no one, but themselves to blame for their condition, Augustine says. One effect of this turning away is the frail condition of human bodies. Yet, Augustine insists, this is a sort of blessing, since it awakens us to our state and lets us practice indifference to material world.

Another help God provided for humans to see the unworthiness of the material world, Augustine continues, was to send divine Wisdom in a human form to aid them. Augustine emphasises so the role of Wisdom or Christ as an exemplar on how to live – Christ cared nothing for earthly riches or earthly power or even his human life. His resurrection, on the other hand, was meant to show that all life is ultimately dependent on nothing else but the connection to the divine.

Why were all these elaborate schemes required to connect humans with God? In other words, why did God create such fragile creatures that couldn't exist by themselves? Augustine's answer is that existence as such is a good thing given to us by God. Without this creation, there would be nothing at all beyond God, so creation has made things better.

Indeed, Augustine emphasises, being of things can never be bad, only the actions freely chosen. Thus, water or sun are not evil things, but if we foolishly jump into water and drown or look too closely to the sun and blind ourselves, it is we who are to be blamed. Thus, material and mutable things are not evil as such: they are more like a piece of music, the full beauty of which requires that one part of it has finished, before others begin. It is just the act of preferring such mutable goods over immutable ones, like the capacity to do music, that is deplorable.

In a perfected form, with an established connection to God, a human being can use their own intelligence to understand all this. But before they have reached this position, Augustine points out, intelligence by itself is usually not enough. Because of this, God has provided them with the authority of religion to guide them toward a phase when they are mature enough to use intelligence. At first, the true church was established through the use of miracles, but then the light of intelligence became strong enough to show the falsity of the prideful dissenters within the church. So, from the human race, ruled in youth by lust toward earthly matters and onset in old age by frailty of diminishing capacities, is born a new race, who little by little turns away from the earthly to a heavenly life.

What intelligence can do, Augustine points out, is to see how feeble is the beautiful order of material nature in comparison with the life organising material objects and how feeble is the mere sensuous life in comparison with intelligence evaluating what senses provide. Yet, intelligence can also recognise its own imperfection, due to not always being able to follow the standards of proper reasoning. These standards are the truly immutable, divine Wisdom.

It is this divine standard, Augustine explains, that gives the material world its beauty, by ordering and unifying it. Beauty and true pleasure are then consequences of unity. Indeed, he continues, all material things imitate the divine unity, but never really achieve proper unity, having been made of a plurality of parts. This proper unity we cannot perceive with senses, Augustine says, but only with heart. What prevents us from perceiving it is not senses, but sin, our own will turning away from God.

Augustine admits that some people might be able to reach Wisdom through their own intelligence. Yet, the majority of humankind is not capable of this and so requires the help of an authority in their first steps toward it. Thus, he instructs, even the most wise humans should show an example to others and approach Wisdom at first through belief, so that no one with less intelligence would be afraid to believe.

Indeed, he continues, a person who still lacks proper intelligence can do no better, but to find someone wise enough to guide them. The obvious problem is how they can recognise that someone is wise, when they are not yet wise enough to discern it. Augustine says that the only answer is to believe that there are such wise people to be found and to have faith in the Creator that such a wise person will be pointed to them. Furthermore, he adds, Christian church seems a very good candidate for such a fountain of wisdom, because people in it are praised for their virtuous ability to ignore snares of the material world in their rigorous ascetic exercises.

A particular opponent of Christian church Augustine wants to target is the Manichean religion, which he himself had adhered to in his youth. Manicheans thought that instead of one, there were two gods, one of which was the source for everything good, like physical light, while the other was the source of everything evil, like evil souls. Augustine, on the contrary, argues that a soul as a non-physical entity is always of higher nature than light, even when doing evil things. Furthermore, he states that souls do not turn to evil because of an evil god, but because of their own choice. Finally, souls can repent of their evil deeds and thus redeem themselves and again become as good as God intended them to.

Manicheaism is not the only enemy of Christianity in Augustine’s eyes. He repudiates those who believe that the Creator required some pre-given matter for forming the world. He also classifies as heretics all who think that the Creator is not distinct from the divine Wisdom or Word, but also those who consider the Word as created: instead, Augustine says, Word is naturally generated from the Creator, like an offspring from a parent. He also defends the idea that the Word embodied itself and lived a normal human life, being born from a woman and dying, but that after this the Word returned to a realm of bliss promised for good people and that the Word will return one day to judge the worth of humans. Furthermore, Augustine states that the Creator and the Word, together with a third distinct entity, called Holy Spirit, which might be a personification of the mutual love of the Creator and the Word, form a single God.

While heretics believe falsities about God, Augustine notes, schismatics hold a too high standard of living for their fellow human beings, although in this life we are unable to live as perfectly as we should. He is especially targeting the Donatist sect, who were unwilling to accept as priests people who had wavered in their conviction.

One standard of true faith lies for Augustine in the scriptures, but since the literal way of reading it is only one of many, it is no simple matter to decide what the Bible says. Thus, Augustine finds even the first sentence of God creating heaven and earth in the beginning problematic: is the writer of Genesis speaking only of the visible world and did God create angels before this beginning, and did God create only unformed matter or already the whole formed universe? After careful consideration he comes to the conclusion that what was created in the beginning was just unformed matter, while the light created next meant the angels.

Augustine also ponders the scriptural problem of what it means that humans were made to the likeness of God. Firstly, he notes that it doesn’t mean that humans would be like or exactly similar to God - this literal likeness or image of God is an aspect of God themselves, namely, the Wisdom or Word of God. Instead, humans become like God just by taking part of this Wisdom, that is, by becoming rational. Still, as likeness of the whole God, humans should not just imitate Wisdom, but the whole triune God. Thus, even the bodily side of humans should reflect God, and just like Plato, Augustine notices that it does so with its upright position that looks toward heavens.

The Bible offers Augustine not just information on the origin of the world and humans, but also guidance on how to live. He especially interprets the beginning of the so-called sermon on mount, and later the so-called Lord’s prayer, as describing steps toward a life in union with divinity. In the first stage, the human being should humbly submit to divine authority - indeed, one should hope that everyone will submit to it. As a sign of submission, one should meekly study the scripture, without disputing its meaning, hoping that one day God will speak to humans directly, not through writings. This study leads the human to mourn, when they understand that seeming goods of the world of perception block it from reaching the true good, where the divine will is fulfilled.

After mourning, Augustine continues, the human being will hunger for its true good - doing the just will of God as their daily bread. Acting merciful toward others and forgiving their bad actions, humans will themselves obtain mercy and forgiveness from God. This mercy is an inner vision of the divine, granted by purity of one’s heart, clear of all earthly temptations. This vision releases human being from all the remaining evil and creates a peace within one’s soul, leading to highest wisdom and life in connection with the divine.

The description of these stages, Augustine explains, takes up only a few lines of the sermon on the mount, while the rest of the text merely explicates this transformation process further. It particularly shows how this process removes a human being away from the pleasures of the ordinary human world, denizens of which will thus ridicule anyone attempting this transformation. Still, Augustine points out, one should not be disheartened by this ridicule, but instead try to inspire others to take the same path by one’s unwavering attitude, although one should not take the path just to impress others. This path, he continues his reading, is something far more arduous than what the Jewish law had prescribed - for instance, one is to suffer even an unsatisfying marriage and refrain from all hatred and revenge.

Augustine is especially interested in the Pauline letters, which show how futile in a Christian world are the rituals of Jewish law that only had a symbolic meaning, like circumcision. This does not mean, Augustine adds, that law as a whole would be futile, since its core of moral commands, like “Do not kill” is still to be followed. It is only that these commands should now be followed not because of a fear of retribution, but because one should respect and love all human beings.

Another important lesson Augustine learns from Paul is the relationship of spirit and flesh, the bodily side of a human being. Spirit ought to control flesh, that is, entice it away from bodily delights to delights of wisdom. Yet, Augustine notes against the Manichaeans, flesh is still created by God and the human spirit should live their life through flesh. Thus, following Paul, Augustine notes that a person need not repress their sexuality, if their spouse still desires intercourse, especially if they desire it for the sake of procreation.

Augustine also defends Paul from Jerome’s supposition that Paul would have feigned a dispute with Peter in order to make a lesson for his readers. Augustine is adamant that all forms of lie should be forbidden, especially if they are supposedly made to support Christianity, for instance, by gaining new followers, because Christian faith should be based on truth. Augustine notes that lies are not to be allowed even in the Ciceronian dilemma of someone asking for whereabouts of a person they are about to kill: one can always just refuse to answer, Augustine says. What then makes something a lie? Augustine notes that it is not so much the content of the assertion, but the intention behind it that defines a lie. Thus, saying a falsehood will not be a lie, even if the speaker knows that they are speaking falsehoods, if they are intending to just make jokes.

From skepticism to faith

With the seminal work of Augustine Western Christianity finally finds a spokesman with equal philosophical credibility as those of the Eastern side had. Indeed, his literary career begins with a very classic problem: does one have to know the truth, if they want to live a good life, guided by reason, or is a mere search for truth enough for this?

The context of Augustine’s discussion is the sceptical phase of Plato’s Academy, as described in the works of Cicero, who insisted that it is humanly impossible to know truth with absolute certainty and that therefore we have to content ourselves with not affirming anything definite, in order to avoid error, although we still continue to study and learn about the world around us. Cicero would add that this life in searching for truth makes humans flourish, since it makes the mind tranquil and calm and that all we need to live wisely is to recognise what is probable and seems like truth.

Augustine’s stance toward Ciceronian scepticism is mostly critical. Firstly, he insists that we do know the truth about various things. With some questions, we can be certain that one of give alternatives is the correct answer, even if we cannot say exactly which one. For instance, Augustine suggests, we can affirm with conviction that there is either only one world or several worlds, even if we do not know which of the two options is the true one. Furthermore, all truths of mathematics are certain: three times three is nine, no matter whether we are asleep or not.

Augustine insists that we have even further knowledge beyond logic and mathematics. Even if we could not know for certain whether snow is white or whether tasty food is good for us, we can be certain that these things seem so to us. Furthermore, Augustine continues, we can also know that a sum of all these things that appear for us - the world, he defines - exists, even if we do not know what it would truly be like.

Augustine is also not happy with Cicero’s suggestion that we could live wisely, even if only knew what is probable: certainly, he says, a wise person must know the truth of how to live well, or otherwise they couldn’t live well. A mere probability is not enough to prevent bad decisions, because e.g. a lecherous person is bound to consider having sex a probably good decision, even if it weren’t. Sometimes even a person with a mere unshakably strong conviction on something fares better than a sceptic choosing nothing, if doing something is a choice better than inaction.

Although he likens sceptics to epileptics, Augustine still has something positive to say about Cicero - maybe he just wanted to say that living wisely is simply impossible for human beings, at least during our earthly life. Still, the life of a sceptic is one of searching for something they can never reach. Thus, Augustine concludes, sceptics can never be truly happy since they are always missing something - want makes humans miserable.

If want is always linked to unhappiness, is unhappiness always caused by want? Augustine considers a case of a rich person who is extremely anxious of losing their whole fortune - certainly they are not happy. This example shows, Augustine says, that merely gathering all kinds of things will not by itself make us happy. Still, he notes, we might say that the rich person is still in want of something, namely, a proper sense of what is really of worth in human life, which would shield them from all anxiety.

Hence, instead of all earthly possessions, Augustine thinks that happiness requires reason that is in some sense a mean between two extremes - it avoids both a lack and an excess of things. Augustine gives this Platonic idea a familiar Christian twist by equating this ultimate wisdom with the Wisdom of God. This means, he explains, that true happiness can only be reached through a connection to divinity.

What then connects us to the divine? Augustine suggests that God has instigated an order that bounds all things, good and evil, into a complex of great beauty, fully appreciable perhaps only from divine perspective, and gives us an opportunity to reach God, if we just grasp onto it. This order gives stability to all things, to humans particularly through understanding of the world and the divine plan behind it.

To fully grasp the divine order, Augustine says, a person needs to cultivate their reason, which is the primary means for ordering what one has learned. Cultivation begins, Augustine instructs, by disciplining one’s behaviour by curbing all excesses, like overblown taste for food or love of money. This stage of person’s upbringing might need the help of an authority figure, although the final goal should always be reason finding its own justifications for everything.

Augustine thinks that the next steps in cultivating reason should follow the order in which various disciplines were found. Thus, one should begin with very elementary topics, like numbering and naming things, and then proceed to classification of the names and the roles they have in speaking. At the same time, the learner should read classic literature and find out things that earlier generations thought were worth putting into a written form.

After these elementary studies, Augustine continues, cultivation of reason should go on to study the very tools it uses for seeking truth. Furthermore, it should also consider what are the best methods for teaching truths found for others and for persuading even those unacquainted with proper use of reason of them being truths.

Augustine suggests that the reason should follow a rather Platonic route. It should be delighted by beauty and thus learn about what makes things like poetry and music so pleasant. Augustine’s very Platonic answer is that it all pertains to numbers and measures, thus necessitating a study of arithmetics, geometry and astronomy.

The crowning achievement of all this learning is to get acquainted with one’s own nature and the divine source of everything. In fact, Augustine says, the relationship should be even stronger: one should love everyone who has reason and especially God. The love awakens in us a desire to get acquainted with them - not with mere senses, which do not guarantee certainty. Instead, Augustine is looking for at least similar certainty as with objects of geometry.

Just like for seeing something one needs, firstly, healthy eyes, secondly, that the eyes look something, and thirdly, that they finally see what they look, similarly, in order to know, Augustine notes, one needs three things: a healthy mind, a decision to want to know, and finally, the actual reaching of what we want to know. To make one’s mind healthy, he continues, one has to purify it from earthly desires, but before it has been purified, one has to believe that purification is a condition for knowledge. Furthermore, one has to have hope that one can purify one’s mind, in order to not stop in despair. Combining these with the already mentioned demand that one has to love and desire this knowledge, we find ourselves with three traditional Christian virtues.

Two of these virtues, Augustine clarifies, we need when we are just purifying ourselves and looking for a knowledge of God. Indeed, they are required during our whole earthly life, where our mind is constantly bombarded with physical ailments. When we finally touch divinity, in a life beyond, we need only to love what we have.

Why does one has to purify one’s mind in order to know God? Augustine explains this by comparing God with the sun. Just like the sun is seen by its light, by which it also reveals other things, so is divinity known by an energy, through which it also makes other things known, and just like sun’s light seems painful to eyes used only to darkness, so is divine energy similarly painful to a mind that is still enamoured by earthly pleasures, riches and honours. Thus, Augustine says, such things are to be desired only insofar as they help us to gain knowledge of the divine.

To know oneself and God, one has to also come to know the truth, Augustine insists. This truth, he explains, is not just some true thing, like when we say that a tree is a true tree. Such true things can come and go, but the truth or what makes all the true things true remains always in existence, because always something is true - if the truth would vanish, it would be true that the truth has vanished.

What then makes things false? Augustine notes that it cannot be mere difference from what is true, since no one would say that an elephant would be false just because it differs from a true lion. Instead, what is false must have a seeming resemblance or imitation of truth, just like pyrite resembles true gold without being it. Of course, it is also not just this resemblance or sameness that makes falsity, because completely identical eggs are not on that account false eggs. Instead, it is the incompleteness of imitation that makes things false. Thus, fables imitate reality, but still fail to be true accounts of reality.

Things can then be ordered according to their truthfulness, Augustine says. In a rather Platonic fashion, Augustine notes that material bodies cannot be very high on this ordering, because they fail to resemble the perfect figures of geometry. Then again, geometry and indeed all fields of learning are fairly high on this ordering. This makes Augustine suggest that the highest point of this order - that which makes everything else true - should be the field of learning about what makes things true: logic or study of argumentation, which again appears to be identified with or at least closely connected to the divine Wisdom.

Augustine notes that logic or the truth resides not anywhere in the material world, but in our thoughts - or at least it must be always connected to our thought. Then again, as he has already pointed out, the truth must be eternal. This makes him conclude that the place where truth resides, in other words, human thinking, must also be immortal. This does not mean that we should be constantly thinking of, say, truths of arithmetic, but only that even when we seemingly forget some truths, they remain at least implicitly hidden in the depths of our mind.

The active thinking and the implicit truths reside then in something, which is separate from our constantly changing bodies and not a mere organisation of matter, Augustine says, because we think best when we are most free of bodily influences. Instead of getting its life from the body, he notes, this seat of thinking or soul should also move and vivify the body.

Augustine continues by noting that this soul can never really completely lose its essence and perish or change into something else, like a material object. Indeed, he argues, even material objects must remain material objects through all their changes, so why wouldn't the same be true of a more perfect entity or soul? It can become imperfect by losing its connection with the divine truth, but then it just falls into deception and nothing non-existent can be deceived.

Soul appears to sense material things, such as sounds that have their own numerical rhythm, Augustines says, and this act of sensing or hearing numerical things, which is in the soul, differs from the rhythm of the physical sounds. Yet, he explains, soul is not truly passive in these sensations, but it just is aware of how these sounds affect the body, and in case this effect hinders the control the soul has over body, the soul feels disturbed, while in case the effect makes it easier to control the body, the soul feels pleasure.

Then again, Augustine continues, in addition to the physical sounds and the hearing of external sounds, the soul also, thirdly, produces rhythmic sounds itself, through the power it has over its body and even without actively perceiving these sounds, for instance, by controlling the beat of its heart. The soul also, fourthly, has memories of rhythmical sounds, and fifthly, it has a capacity of judging which combinations of sounds feels delightful.

Of these five instances of rhythm, Augustine argues, the lowest in rank are the mere physical rhythms. Higher in hierarchy is the memory of rhythms, because memories at least involve mental activities, not mere physical events. Still, memory is not very high, because it is still dependent on previous mental acts. Next comes the sensing of the rhythms and above that the rhythms inherent in the activity of the soul over the body: while both are activities, Augustine explains, in the former the soul is concerned only with how the body is affected by other bodies, while in the latter it is actively moving the body.

The judgement of rhythms is the most perfect, being able to evaluate the worth of all the others. Yet, a mere judgement of a delight or repulsion is not the highest possible level, Augustine notes. Even higher is the proper judgement of reason, which explains why certain rhythms are delightful by comparing the numerical ratios involved and notes that certain harmonies are beautiful.

This knowledge of the numeric ratios behind sensuous delights is the most lasting and ultimately dependent on the author of all harmony, that is, God, Augustine says. Understanding music is then one possible way the soul can move from sensuous reality toward the true source of life, although there is the possibility that it gets tied down to the mere sensuous images and tries to fruitlessly find true happiness outside God.

The human soul finds, then, its completion with God, just like the human body finds its completion in the soul that makes it alive. Yet, Augustine adds, the human soul does not by itself have a capacity to reach the divine. Therefore, it needs the help of the authority of scripture to make the final step to God, when reason fails it. This final step means total dedication to God and acknowledgement that one is wholly dependent on the divine, Augustine adds. This dedication or love appears in four different shapes corresponding to traditional virtues: as a temperate disdain of all pleasures not derived from God, as courageous bearing of all pain and death through the hope of reaching God, just serving of God as the true source of our life and wise choice of things leading us toward God.

In addition to serving God, Augustine notes, the scripture also advises us to help fellow human beings. This help, he explains, can concern bodily matters, like when we feed hungry people. Yet, he continues, a much more important way to help is to instruct and guide our fellow human beings in matters of soul. Indeed, Augustine emphasises that the search for God is essentially a communal effort, with communities of the devoted spending their lives in serving the divine. Furthermore, the communal nature is also a guarantee that no one has to be perfect: for instance, not all people need to forsake carnal relations, as long as these do not overstep the limits set in the biblical tradition.

If good for the soul means turning toward the source of everything, evil is then simply turning away from this source, Augustine explains. Evil especially is no independent power outside the soul fighting against goodness, because then we might as well ask, why it shouldn’t be called good, since it sustains itself. Instead, evil means a mere lack of order and being, which is nothing substantial.

The soul that chooses where to turn has no size, like the points it can think, and it definitely does not grow with the body, Augustine argues, since e.g. the most muscular people are not necessarily the brightest. Indeed, he notes, the soul does not need to grow in order to control all parts of the body, just like vision need not be at the horizon to see what’s there. Still, Augustine adds, the soul can be said to grow or become greater in a figurative sense, when it becomes more what it should be. At first, it just makes the body alive and nourishes it, like with plants, then, it uses the body to sense its environment, move around it and procreate new living bodies, like animals, while finally reaching the properly human stage, when it learns about various arts that help it to live in the society. The soul that is not satisfied with learning that could be used by both good and bad alike, Augustine continues, strives to turn away from the world and to purify itself from mere material things. Finding satisfaction in its own perfection, it can finally approach divinity and search its final fulfilment with the contemplation of the source of all truths.

This source of all truths, Augustine notes, is also the source of all existence. God created even the time, so that there simply was no time before creation and therefore no need for a reason why he created everything at that particular time. Together with time, Augustine says, he created the unformed matter, from which everything else then was made. Among the things God created, Augustine continues, were the human soul and its body. At first, the human life was centred on God and nourished by metaphorical rivers of four virtues - Augustine’s allegorical reading of the account of Paradise watered by four rivers. Continuing the allegorical reading, he notes that in this perfect state human reason (represented in Genesis by Adam) ruled the sensual appetites (represented by Eve). Completing the allegory, Augustine notes that the devil allured human reason through its sensuous appetite to place itself above God, making it difficult and an arduous task for humans to regain their former, true relation to God.

Despite creating humans and their desires, Augustine assures us, God should not be taken as the source of evil. Instead, a move toward evil is always our own fault. A mistaken choice leads us away from the only true good or good will and makes us care more about temporal matters. God cannot be blamed even for creating our free will, which allows us to make bad choices, because free will is also a condition for good will - it is the abuser of this gift who is to blame for their choice. Even God’s foreknowledge of people doing evil things does not transfer the guilt from humans to God, Augustine says, since mere knowledge of something does not cause this something to happen, even if it would be of things yet to come. The same is to be said of the birth of a human being in a condition, where the use of will for good is already made difficult by the body tainted by the prideful choice of the first human, Augustine insists, because it is possible to free oneself even from this fallen state.

This first stage of Augustine’s career has been characterised by relatively philosophical topics and methods, showing his interest in contemporary Platonism. After he was ordained priest, his interest slowly turned more toward Christian tradition, such as biblical exegesis. We will follow the development of his thought in the following posts.

Philosophy by commentary

As we have seen, a very common style of writing among late ancient philosophers, whether pagan or Christian, was commentary. Especially the Greek-speaking pagan philosophers of the last days of antiquity have left us mostly commentaries, although we cannot be sure if this tells more of the interests of the East-Romans and Arabs curating texts of antiquity. The outlook of these commentators, as with most of the philosophers of late antiquity, could be described as broadly Platonic and often even Neo-Platonic.

A good example is Hierocles of Alexandria, who wrote a commentary of the Golden Verses, a poem attributed to none other than Pythagoras. As is often the case, Hierocles’ commentary is a rather original interpretation of the poem and engages themes that are not that apparent in the poem itself. To put it briefly, Hierocles sees the poem as an instruction how humans can purify oneself from the corporeal life to a life resembling divinities.

First step on this road, Hierocles explains, is to understand the hierarchy of beings, with the top places being occupied by divinities with a constant and unwavering awareness of Creator, the lowest places being occupied by mortal humans, who often fail to remember Creator, and the places in between being occupied by intermediary beings, who are constantly aware of Creator, but in a variable measure. This hierarchy has been assigned by Creator, Hierocles says, because it is proper that there should be beings of all possible levels.

The beings of lower levels should then honour the beings in the higher levels, not by any gifts, but by imitating them in their own life, Hierocles continues. In the case of the divine level, this means relying on the Creator and other gods and respecting the order generated by them. It also means not invoking them too often, but only at appropriate times. In case of the intermediary level, Hierocles adds, this honouring means knowing the internal hierarchy of that level, which reflects the order of the whole hierarchy: nearest to gods are angels, nearer to humans are heroes and between them are demons. It also means trying to imitate the dedication of these intermediary entities in their unwavering thinking of divinity.

Honour should be shown also to some humans, Hierocles notes. The foremost of these are those called in the Golden Verses the terrestrial demons - they are humans (terrestrial), who resemble the beings of higher levels (demons) in their knowledge, Hierocles interprets. In addition, honour is to be given to one’s parents, Hierocles adds, because they connect us through a natural line of generation to higher levels of being. This honouring means doing what our parents ask us to do, except in the case if they command us to break divine laws.

We should also honour our friends, Hierocles says, but we should first take care that we choose only friends who deserve such honouring. When we do have friends, he continues, we should deal with them with the same love as the Creator deals with us. Indeed, we should treat everyone with love, so that the Creator will treat us favourably.

This is what Hierocles has to say about us comporting to all the other entities. In addition, he notes that we should discipline ourselves, restrict our passions and let our reason rule us. Hierocles refers here to the familiar four Platonic virtues – wisdom, courage, temperance and justice – which he sees as different aspects of self-discipline. This self-discipline, he continues, is dependent on our knowing ourselves as immortal and independent of the body – otherwise, we wouldn’t have enough of a motive to resist our bodily impulses. This knowledge will help us to stay determined in our pursuit of a loftier shape of life.

Another motivating point for virtuous life, Hierocles says, is the certainty that the divine order will eventually reward a life of reason and punish a life of unreason. The rewards are not good as such, just like punishments are not true evil - truly good is only good life, just like truly evil is bad life, Hierocles explains. Still, the rewards and punishments can serve as motives for living good. Then again, Hierocles says, no one can blame Creator for misfortunes, since they are ultimately caused by earlier bad actions. Hierocles also notes that this cycle of reward and punishment is relevant only to humans, while irrational animals live only by the rule of the material world.

Motivation for virtue is thus dependent on proper beliefs. This implies, Hierocles notes, that we must be able to distinguish good arguments leading to truth from deceptive arguments that lead to falsities. One key element here, he says, is to recognise that we are first and foremost disembodied entities or souls. Thus, threats against our bodies or even further removed externalities, like our property, should serve as no argument for us.

Furthermore, Hierocles continues, we should not follow the instigations of irrational desires. Instead, we should follow the guidance of our reason and deliberate on our future actions, as well as repent the irrational actions we’ve committed. If we lack enough information to decide, we should refrain from action, but if we do have, we should definitely do the good thing.

One part of a reasonable life, Hierocles tells, is to care for the instrument given to serve us, that is, our bodies. An important part of this care is to keep the body healthy by moderating eating and drinking and by training the body through exercises. Hierocles advises moderation also for life in general: one should not try to hoard goods or be envious to people who have more than us. Furthermore, one should constantly consider one’s actions in order to become aware if one has transgressed some principle of good life.

Guidelines Hierocles have presented this far have been meant to tell us how to live as humans and to distinguish us from animals. Next step, he says, is to make us as divine and as close to the Creator as possible. Here the first thing to do, Hierocles notes, is to admit that one’s abilities are not enough, but one has to pray for divine help to rise from earthly level.

Again, Hierocles continues, one has to understand the position of humans in the hierarchy of being as the least of rational beings, incapable of becoming literally a god - such an attempt would be futile - but different also from mere material beings, like animals and plants - if one tries to imitate an ass, one becomes asinine. One’s condition is then ultimately up to one’s own choice. If one remains bound to the changes of the material world, one is bound to feel the pain inherent in that world. On the other hand, if one chooses to live one’s life in imitation of gods, like a true philosopher, one will not be touched by those pains.

If the first part of philosophy was meant to make us behave like good humans and the second one was meant to give us the knowledge of a philosopher, the final part, Hierocles says, should give the final touch of divinity. Human souls do not just care for a material body, Hierocles insists, but they are also equipped with a luminous body, like stars. Both of these bodies require purification, which is of a ritualistic nature. Thus Hierocles says, a person seeking perfection should train their material body with ever hardening abstinence, but in addition they should train their luminous body with mathematics. Through this purification, the human soul can be admitted to the order of divinities - not as if the human soul would change its natural essence, Hierocles explains, but as an honour bestowed upon the person in question.

Probably the most commented philosopher in late antiquity - or at least the one with most commentaries preserved for us - is Aristotle. There certainly were commentators who placed Aristotle as the highest among philosophers. This is true of Themistius, who at least on occasion was more of a government official than a philosopher - or at least he had to defend himself against accusations of living a life engaged with matters unsuitable for a philosopher. Themistius’ own outlook on what was to be a philosopher focused more on the practical affairs than that of Neo-Platonists, such as how to find and keep friends and even the virtues of farming. It is no wonder then that he favoured Aristotle over Plato.

Themistius’ commentaries were apparently one source of his renown, but he himself considered them to be mere unoriginal summaries of what Aristotle had written. He did try to make the latter’s writings into a continuous course of philosophy, replacing uncertain ponderings with definite dogmas and so constructing a coherent whole out of disparate writings. Thus, Themistius would begin with Aristotle’s logical writings, as they would teach a student the methodology by which the rest of the philosophy would continue. Then, he would move on to the consideration of the ultimate foundation of all that happens in nature in Aristotle’s Physics. This foundation would provide an explanation for all the natural phenomena, but would at first have to be extrapolated from what we know of these phenomena.

Following Aristotle’s lead, Themistius rejects the Eleatic idea that there really is only one changeless being, which would lead to a denial of all natural phenomena we seem to experience, and also Anaxagoras’ suggestion that unlimited kinds of natural stuff consist of small parts of all of these unlimited kinds of natural stuff, since that suggestion would make all explanation pointless. Instead, Themistius and Aristotle preferred the idea of many ancient philosophers who tried to reduce all natural phenomena into two opposites, between which all natural changes occurred.

The correct kernel in this attempted reduction was, according to Themistius and Aristotle, that all natural changes, whether they were generations of completely new things, like birth of an animal, or just changes of a thing’s properties, like the growth of the same animal, moved toward a result from a state, where the result did not yet occur. In addition, something always remained during these changes, even in cases where something new was generated: both a foetus and an animal share some substances.

Of course, what the result or the form and the identical element or the matter is varies according to the change in question. Now, Aristotle had made suggestions that behind all natural changes might be something that always remained the same or prime matter. Themistius takes the existence of prime matter as a given. The prime matter has no features in the sense that it can sustain any feature whatsoever. Yet, it does not lack features in the sense that a beginning of some change does: otherwise, it would be destroyed by the change. Indeed, Themistius suggests, the prime matter strives to structure itself and move to more ordered forms, which also gives the natural changes an intrinsic end. Still, the prime matter is incapable of sustaining these forms indefinitely and it keeps falling to a lack of form, which then could be described as the state of badness.

Themistius’ development of the notion of prime matter is compatible with the general Aristotelian notion that natural things are to be primarily explained by the forms that are the end of natural processes, such as generation of new individuals of a species of animals, although the nature of the matter might hinder the actualisation of these forms (for instance, in the birth of degenerate animals). Here, a number of important points of Aristotelian physics are involved, for instance, that all changes are essentially movements toward actualisation of some potentialities still passively latent before the change and that matter with its potentially infinite parts is given determinate quantitative limits by the very form that makes matter into a complete and finite universe.

Themistius paraphrased also Aristotle’s writings on one particular part of the physical universe, namely, that of ensouled or living things. He follows Aristotle in criticising thinkers who thought that the essence of this soul animating living things would lie in moving constantly: whatever soul is, it is not body and thus cannot be meaningfully said to move or change in the Aristotelian sense. Themistius notes that there might be a lexical confusion involved, because when e.g. followers of Plato appear to say that soul moves itself, they might actually mean that soul is active, for instance, in moving other things, without truly changing into anything.

Themistius also criticises, like Aristotle, thinkers who identify soul with a certain harmonious blend or attunement of the bodily parts: while such an attunement would be dependent on the body, soul should be more like something that causes this harmonious attunement in the body. Themistius even seriously considers the possibility that by soul is just meant a universal vivifying force that spurs bodies of particular kinds into lives of their own kinds.

Themistius follows the official Aristotelian stand that by soul is meant the set of capacities and activities that are peculiar to a living being. These capacities and activities include at least those of sustaining and reproducing oneself, which are common to all living beings.

All animals, furthermore, also have various capacities for sense perception. In sense perception, Themistius continues, sense organs are not really changed, but they receive imprints or likenesses of what is perceived. In addition, sense perception requires some medium, such as air, which transmits the imprint of what is sensed (say, a colour) to the sense organ (here, an eye). This is even true for touch, Themistius interprets Aristotle, since here flesh plays the role of the medium, while the real sense organ is internal to the body.

Themistius follows Aristotle in discerning five different senses - touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing - of which touch is the only one found in all animals. Other commentators had suggested that Aristotle required also yet another sense, which helps to recognise features common to many senses, such as the shape and size of an object, and generally the fact that perceived features belong to the same object (rose being both red and sweet smelling). Themistius criticises this view, because it wouldn’t explain how what is perceived by this “common sense” would then be combined to what is perceived by individual senses. Instead, he suggests that the individual senses, as it were, are themselves linked, so that outputs of each sense are combined into wholes by a single faculty that uses individual senses as means for perception. In the physical body, this link should then be seen as all sense organs connecting to the same pneumatic fluid taking care of sensation.

While sensation is common to all animals, Themistius says, imagination or the ability to consider mental images of things not present is restricted only to more complex animals. It is this imagination that, for instance, creates our dreams. Imagination is also used by many animals for activities that humans use reason for. Especially together with desire, it takes care of animals’ voluntary motions.

Above imagination in Aristotelian philosophy lies intelligence, Themistius points out. Intelligence is for Aristotle, as interpreted by Themistius, an ability clearly separate from sensation and imagination, and unlike either of them, occurs in no other animals, but humans. Intelligence is also the only ability, according to Themistius, without any material base to support it.

In fact, Themistius notes that in Aristotelian philosophy there exists more than one intelligence in human beings. Clearly, we humans do not always think and even less do we always think of the same thing. Instead, our intellect is at times only dormant, waiting for something to activate its thinking. Despite being passive, even this dormant intellect is something separate from our bodies and thus immortal.

That which activates the dormant or potential intellect Aristotle called an active intellect, and the relation of these two intellects was a topic of great debate among his commentators. Themistius compares the active intellect to sunlight, which illuminates our eyes. Just like the sunlight, the active intellect is common to all human beings, while the potential intellect, analogously to an eye, is distinct to each individual. Active intellect is thus even further removed from the human body and of course also immortal.

Somewhat paradoxically, Themistius insists that it is the active intellect, just because of its being the active part of the relation, that should be most identified with ourselves. This does not mean that the active intellect would remember our individual lives after our death. In this particular life, we humans are intellects combined from the active and potential intellect and the various bodily activities, like sensation and imagination. When we die, this particular combination vanishes and with it all our memories.

We humans are thus for Aristotle, as interpreted by Themistius, a people of two realms, bodily and intellectual. Above us lie divine pure intellects. Even these are not completely disembodied - indeed, it is the stars that Themistius is talking about. These stars just do not require the more bodily abilities of humans, like sensations, but manage everything through their intellect. Themistius suggests that even without sensations stars can be aware of one another, just like a mother can be aware of her children without actually perceiving them.

While Themistius placed Aristotle in the highest rank of philosophers, Neo-Platonist commentators, like Syrianus, were of a different opinion: compared to divine philosophers, like Plato, Aristotle was just on the rank of demons or lower spiritual beings. Still, Syrianus found it still worthwhile to read Aristotle’s works and to see where he had gone wrong. Using Aristotle’s list of philosophical problems in his Metaphysics, Syrianus outlines his own idea of the highest kind of knowledge or wisdom.

This wisdom, Syrianus says, describes all causes affecting what things are like, such as the ultimate good. He is adamant that such a science exists and that there is a single science studying all kinds of causes and that it is precisely the highest science that studies them. Syrianus answers the possible objection that a highest science should study eternal things that do not have all kinds of causes, e.g. final causes, by insisting that eternal things must have final causes, because they are good and beautiful.

Wisdom also describes the ultimate principles or axioms, from which to deduce all truths, Syrianus says. For instance, it must know the law of non-contradiction, because it is the basis of all knowledge. The possible objection that axioms like the law of non-contradiction cannot be known by one science, because they are used in all sciences, Syrianus solves by pointing out that wisdom knows these axioms in a different manner, that is, through a direct intuition of ultimate truths.

Although incapable of a proper demonstration, due to being the foundation of all demonstration, Syrianus notes, one can argue for the law of non-contradiction. Thus, he says, a person denying this law cannot really speak, because none of his words have any definite meaning, since e.g. what they call black might as well be called not-black. Indeed, whenever a person actually does something, e.g. flee from danger, they implicitly accept the law, since they think that danger is something definite to flee from. A person denying the principle would thus be reduced to a life of a mere plant.

Syrianus also ponders why some people are willing to reject the law of contradiction. He briefly considers Aristotle's suggestion that the denial of the principle would follow from Protagoras' relativism, but rejects the idea: Protagoras merely supposed that a thing can be something for a person and something else for another person, but not that it would be both for the same person. What the deniers of the law of contradiction are probably thinking, Syrianus concludes, is matter and material objects, which can become e.g. both black and not-black. Even then they forget that they cannot be both at the same time and that amidst all their changes something always stays stable.

Furthermore, he notes that not all axioms endorsed by Aristotle were actually universally applicable. Thus, while the law of non-contradiction holds with everything, the law of the excluded middle doesn’t, Syrianus argues, because the ultimate, primordial unity cannot really be described in any words, whether affirmative or negative.

While Aristotle considered it an essential problem whether there are beings beyond those we can see. Syrianus turns this problem around: true beings are those we cannot perceive, while perceivable things are always changing and so maybe not beings in the primary sense of the word. Despite not physically moving, the universe of imperceptible things is still alive and thus in a sense active.

Furthermore, Syrianus insists that the hierarchy of being has more rungs than just these two, for instance, imperceivable beings having many different subtypes - there is a perfect model of reality in the mind of a Creative Intelligence and an incomplete image of that in human souls, which still is more perfect than the physical world. Aristotle had questioned whether such a multiplication of beings would entail a similar multiplication of sciences dealing with them. Syrianus answers positively: physical land measurement deals with physical entities that only resemble ideal geometric figures considered by pure mathematics.

One could say, Syrianus notes, that wisdom, being the study of both all causes and ultimate principles, concerns all types of being, while particular sciences proceeding from it concentrate on a certain type of being. If one would want to assign a particular realm of being as the object of wisdom, it would have to be something determining the rest of the beings. Thus, like Aristotle had hinted, Syrianus thinks that, for instance, instead of qualities, wisdom is concerned more with what has qualities. In the end, wisdom is for Syrianus especially a study of paradigmatic being or the Creative Intelligence.

Aristotle noted a possible objection that wisdom being concerned with all kinds of beings would mean that it would then study all the essential properties of every being. Syrianus simply points out that this is true, but only if we speak of such essential properties that are common to all forms of being. Wisdom would then use two methods: it would define what is and then demonstrate the properties that what is has. At the highest levels of the hierarchy of being there are beings, which are so simple that there is nothing to define nor to demonstrate in them, but they just have to be apprehended as they are.

Wisdom, Syrinaus continues, is not just concerned with what there is, but also their relations. Everything is derived from primal unity, which creates identities, equalities and similarities among all things. Then again, Syrianus adds, among highest principles there’s also an original duality, which creates divisions and dissimilarities in the classes of things. In addition to these very general relations, which Aristotle admits as a topic to be dealt with in the highest philosophy, Syrianus mentions Platonic notions of motion and rest, which, Syrianus says, also affect all beings, even those we cannot perceive.

For Aristotle, individuals were prior to their genera, which exist only in concrete individuals. Syrianus notes that Aristotle was in a sense right: if by genera we mean abstractions from concrete individuals, then certainly e.g. humanity is something dependent on concrete humans. Then again, Syrianus adds, by genera we can also mean general forces that e.g. create and regulate humans and so are prior to individuals. Such general forces exist, he continues, because material individuals that come and go presuppose, firstly, a formless and eternal matter, and secondly, something that forms individuals out of this matter. This implies, Syrianus concludes, that there is something beyond mere material things - the Platonic forms, as present in the mind of the intelligence fashioning the material world.

Syrianus also attempts to avoid the so-called problem of the third man, which Aristotle used to criticise Plato. Syrianus’ answer is that the problem is not generated, because the forms that determine the material world are of different sort than the things fashioned by them: only one model human is required by the intelligence to form material humans. Still, Syrianus adds, not everything in the material world is determined by these forms, because e.g. there is no Platonic form for ugliness.

Aristotle had also raised the question about the status of the mathematical objects. Syrianus notes that there are several kinds of mathematical objects. The proper numbers of the ideal world, he says, are substantial things determining also the perceived world. Then again, he adds, there are also mathematical objects that are mere abstractions from material objects.

Some of Aristotle’s questions Syrianus finds somewhat inappropriate. For instance, Aristotle had inquired whether principles of everything have some concrete number, just like material elements are numbered four. Syrianus notes that the question is partly meaningless. The Platonic forms determining the material world must have some determinate number, Syrianus admits, but the ultimate primal unity beyond even the Platonic forms is also beyond numbers. Thus, one might say that the primal unity is one, but at the same time it contains in itself implicitly everything. Similarly, Syrianus says, the highest principles are beyond the distinction of universals and particulars and the distinction of action and passion.

The realm of ungenerated beings, Syrianus notes, is determined only by ungenerated principles. The effect of these ungenerated principles, he continues, is not restricted to the ungenerated beings, but they affect even generated beings of the world of perception. Then again, generated beings do have also generated causes, for instance, humans are conceived by humans.

Still, Syrianus says, it is the ungenerated principles that are the more essential causes than the generated ones. Indeed, going against what Aristotle had said, the highest types of being - those directly under the primal unity beyond even being - are not just something that other beings try to imitate but also something that give being to everything else. These are, Syrianus notes, the Empedoclean powers of Love and Strife or the Pythagorean unity and duality, first combining everything into a whole and the second producing innumerable differences. Below these two, Syrianus continues, are the traditional gods in heaven, which are immortal, but still temporal and so have a duty to govern the temporal world.

Like all Neo-Platonists, Syrianus does note that there is something beyond this hierarchy - the primal unity or the ultimate source of goodness, which is beyond all opposition to multiplicity. He finds Aristotle somewhat ambiguous about the existence of such unity. Firstly, Syrianus agrees with Aristotle’s argument that since there are universal forces shaping material entities, there must be unity as the highest universal making everything else unified. Then again, when Aristotle asks how anything else and in general multiplicity could exist beside such a Parmenidean unity, Syrianus counters that multiplicity is nothing only in comparison with the higher type of existence of primal unity and that the the existence of multiple entities are even founded on the primal unity.

Indeed, Syrianus goes expressly against Aristotle's statement that being and unity mean essentially the same thing. Instead, Syrianus insists that while all beings require unity, the primal unity is beyond being as we normally understand it. Thus, while wisdom can reach everything else, it cannot reach the primal unity, because beyond being this unity is also beyond knowledge.