While measuring the amount of impact a person has upon history is impossible to quantify, it is not a baseless assertion to say that Saint Augustine has impacted medieval philosophy and religion more than any other person. There are arguments to be made for a few other individuals, but through this paper, an argument will be made that shows the pervasiveness of his thoughts and works. A major factor that sets Augustine apart is that every sect of Christendom can claim him as influential. Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestant all look to him as a father. He is a binding for them all. It is most interesting because they all claim that he got different things right and wrong, yet they all see him as influential and good. While Christendom is only a small part of philosophy and religion, it was a major control and influential force within the medieval time which makes Augustine all the more important. While before medieval times, the connections that he makes in his works between Neoplatonist thoughts and the Trinity, his understanding of time and how it relates to movement, how humanity fits within creation, and the reorientation of happiness all set him apart and are an integral part that gets humanity from the ancient thought process into the medieval stream. He is the catalyst of change and is still relevant today within Christendom.
To see how the bridge was built, a short comparison between Plotinus and Augustine is needed. Throughout the fifth and sixth enneads in The Six Enneads, Plotinus builds out his power structure on how everything came into being. He starts with the One, which he also calls the Good, Absolute Unity, and the Unity Principle. He did not know much else about this entity, but he attributed the start of everything to the One. It was before everything. The One then created Kronos, which is interesting that Plotinus who is Roman is attributing all of creation to a Greek God. Kronos he also called the Intellectual Principle or the Divine Intellect. Kronos then had to make and eat enough of his god children to become full of himself in order to make Zeus, his son. Zeus is also known as the Reason Principle or Soul. From Zeus, comes mankind. He builds this hierarchy of power in order to develop the things that he says as important, the unity, intelligence, and reason. These things need to be in place before man comes into the picture because these are the things that differentiate man from animal. This is important because of what Augustine does with these thoughts. Without any explanation as to why, when Augustine read Plotinus, he read it as the Holy Scriptures.
So you made use of a man, one who was bloated with the most outrageous pride, to procure me some of the books of the Platonists, translated from the Greek into Latin. In them I read—not, of course, word for word, though the sense was the same and it was supported by all kinds of different arguments—that at the beginning of time the Word already was; and God had the Word abiding with him, and the Word was God. He abode, at the beginning of time, with God. It was through him that all things came into being, and without him came nothing that has come to be. In him there was life, and that life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness, a darkness which was not able to master it. I read too that the soul of man, although it bears witness of the light, is not the Light. But the Word, who is himself God, is the true Light, which enlightens every soul born into the world. He, through whom the world was made, was in the world, and the world treated him as a stranger. But I did not find it written in those books that he came to what was his own, and they who were his own gave him no welcome. But all those who did welcome him he empowered to become the children of God, all those who believe in his name (60)
These verses that Augustine is quoting throughout this section are straight from the book of John. Augustine is taking the ancient philosophy that he knows, sees what he thinks is truth within it, and then changes it by putting them under the authority of the Bible. Church history, including Augustine, would believe that the Old Testament predates ancient philosophy. The book of John was written to clarify many things within the Old Testament. Augustine is working to change philosophy to fit within his theology. Instead of the One, Kronos, and Zeus, Augustine has the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost all existing together as his Trinity. Augustine does have a major difference than Plotinus in that his Trinity is not created but is eternal and all powerful. This Trinity is the basis for the rest of medieval philosophy and thought and is the major overtone that describes this movement. Augustine is the one to start this movement by taking the major school of ancient thought and putting it under Scripture.
From mythology and religion which is the starting point of everything, it is good to move to what comes after which is time, space, and matter. From their perspectives, the gods or God created everything including time, space, and matter. Augustine spends the majority of book XI in The Confessions pondering what time is with how it relates to an infinite God as well as space and matter.
How could those countless ages have elapsed when you, the Creator, in whom all ages have their origin, had not yet created them? What time could there have been that was not created by you? How could time elapse if it never was?
You are the Maker of all time. If, then, there was any time before you made heaven and earth, how can anyone say that you were idle? You must have made that time, for time could not elapse before you made it.
But if there was no time before heaven and earth were created, how can anyone ask what you were doing “then”? If there was no time, there was no “then.” (117)
Through this line of questioning, Augustine is establishing that God is outside of time and the creator of time. It does not give him answers but it does show a hierarchy that God is above time much like the One who created Kronos. The last line also opens the door to where he goes with the argument about the past, present, and future. He struggled because “As a boy [he] learned that there were three divisions of time, past, present, and future” (119), yet there were those who did not maintain that there was a past and a future, only the present. This is because the future and the past cannot be observed. Where did they go or where did they come from? These are the questions that troubled others and Augustine. He had answers for them that at least satisfied himself. After a line of reasoning dealing with different perspectives, he comes to this conclusion, “It might be correct to say that there are three times, a present of past things, a present of present things, and a present of future things. Some such different times do exist in the mind, but nowhere else that I can see” (120). This gave a personal touch to time and memory. Each person would have their own version of the past that they remembered, their experience of the present that is currently happening, as well as their own path to follow into the future.
This leads into how time is measured. For “[he] once heard a learned man say that time is nothing but the movement of the sun and the moon and the stars, but [he] did not agree” (121). If time was something that was created, it did not merely depend upon man assigning it to the movement of matter through space. It had to come from God. “[His] problem is to discover the fundamental nature of time and what power it has. It is by time that we measure the movement of bodies” (121). This reorientates time by not making it a description of matter, but rather an entity alongside of matter and space. Augustine put it this way:
It is clear, then, that the movement of a body is not the same as the means by which we measure the duration of its movement. This being so, it must be obvious which of the two ought more properly to be called time. The same body may move at different speeds, and sometimes it is at rest, and we measure not only its motion but also its rest by means of time. We say that it was at rest for the same length of time as it was in motion, or that it stood still for twice or three times as long as it moved, and so on, whether we make an exact calculation or a rough estimate—“more or less,” as the saying goes.
Time, therefore, is not the movement of a body. (122)
By having to consider the periods of rest, man cannot use movement and change as the substance of time because what happens if there is no movement? Does time then stop to exist? This is Augustine’s proof that time is not only the measure of movement. What then is it? At the end of his argument, he gives this possible solution, “It seems to me, then, that time is merely an extension, though of what it is an extension I do not know. I begin to wonder whether it is an extension of the mind itself” (123). He draws it back to the mind. This points back to the first point but leaves a question to be answered that Augustine does not address. If time is an extension of the mind, would that then point to the soul of man, which points to the light that enlightens every soul? So then would man’s judgement of time be something that is given by the creator of the universe? Augustine does not have answers for these questions, but it does lead to his next area of influence: man’s purpose within the created order.
If man has a gift that is from the creator of the universe, what might it be? To start to puzzle this out, it would be important to look at the start of man as Augustine saw it. He made this observation about the early chapters of Genesis, “For when you created men, you did not say ‘Let man be made according to his kind’ but Let us make man wearing our own image and likeness. You spoke in this way because you meant us to see for ourselves what your will is” (151). Using scripture, Augustine saw that man was made in the likeness of God, in his image. If man is made to be similar to God, what was he then made for? “You are our God and we are your design, pledged to good actions” (151). Man is made for good works. This hearkens back to Plotinus’ point that the Good is the Absolute Unity within all things. Augustine saw the connections here because Scriptures also points out the same end goal: the good.
So then what is good? What is it that man is made to be shooting for? How do we know if we are getting there? Before giving his own thoughts, Augustine dissects the words of Varro, a pagan theologist:
The same may be said of those three kinds of life, the life of studious leisure and search after truth, the life of easy engagement in affairs, and the life in which both these are mingled. When it is asked, which of these should be adopted, this involves no controversy about the end of good, but inquires which of these three puts a man in the best position for finding and retaining the supreme good. For this good, as soon as a man finds it, makes him happy; but lettered leisure, or public business, or the alternation of these, do not necessarily constitute happiness. Many, in fact, find it possible to adopt one or other of these modes of life, and yet to miss what makes a man happy. (577)
Varro gave two paths in life with a mingling of the two for a third option. This did not settle it for Augustine though because he could see that not all men would be happy in these pursuits. There had to be something more that would work to make all men happy and content which is what led him for the search of the supreme good. Where could this supreme good be found?
The life, then, which is either subject to accidents, or environed with evils so considerable and grievous, could never have been called happy, if the men who give it this name had condescended to yield to the truth, and to be conquered by valid arguments, when they inquired after the happy life, as they yield to unhappiness, and are overcome by overwhelming evils, when they put themselves to death, and if they had not fancied that the supreme good was to be found in this mortal life; for the very virtues of this life, which are certainly its best and most useful possessions, are all the more telling proofs of its miseries in proportion as they are helpful against the violence of its dangers, toils, and woes. (581)
This life is hard, and it can be difficult to call any but the most blessed happy in this life, would we then not look to the life to come? This is the way that Augustine saw the answer to a happy life is to look for it where God says to look, at the life to come. For if not yet saved to the supreme God, how could it be happy?
And therefore the Apostle Paul, speaking not of men without prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice, but of those whose lives were regulated by true piety, and whose virtues were therefore true, says, “For we are saved by hope: now hope which is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.” As, therefore, we are saved, so we are made happy by hope. And as we do not as yet possess a present, but look for a future salvation, so is it with our happiness, and this “with patience”; for we are encompassed with evils, which we ought patiently to endure, until we come to the ineffable enjoyment of unmixed good; for there shall be no longer anything to endure. Salvation, such as it shall be in the world to come, shall itself be our final happiness. (581-582)
Man can hope in the life to come and look to the savior in order to find a peace and happiness within this life no matter the station or blessedness that one has now. This is the supreme good that Augustine was looking for and that he was content with placing his hope in. This is a good that brings peace. “For peace is a good so great, that even in this earthly and mortal life there is no word we hear with such pleasure, nothing we desire with such zest, or find to be more thoroughly gratifying” (585).
This peaceful supreme good does not leave us to continue as we are though. The good provides mankind with a direction. It is a good that comes with action. It looks to the life that man has now and pushes him towards the life that is to come. It looks to harmonize the two of them for a coherent existence within the cosmos.
And because, so long as he is in this mortal body, he is a stranger to God, he walks by faith, not by sight; and he therefore refers all peace, bodily or spiritual or both, to that peace which mortal man has with the immortal God, so that he exhibits the well-ordered obedience of faith to eternal law. But as this divine Master inculcates two precepts—the love of God and the love of our neighbour—and as in these precepts a man finds three things he has to love—God, himself, and his neighbour—and that he who loves God loves himself thereby, it follows that he must endeavour to get his neighbour to love God, since he is ordered to love his neighbour as himself. (589)
By looking to the eternal law and the way that an individual man fits within this law, it gives each person a way to find fulfillment within the life that they have. It is a life of faith that seeks to love God, himself, and his neighbor. Unlike the life that Varro described that was based upon circumstances that are beyond the control of man, Augustine set forth a standard that he found in the Bible that is possible for any person to follow as long as they have faith.
Augustine was a man of unique giftedness. He said of himself when talking about reading Aristotle’s Ten Categories, “I managed to read it and understand it without help” and “The meaning of the book seemed clear enough to me” (32). Through it all, he saw connections. He learned of the men of old from Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Plotinus, Cicero, and Varro to see what they had to say. He spent time with the Manicheans, learning Eastern philosophy before the world was split between West and East. He finally found peace with his friend Saint Ambrose and the Bible. He saw the truth that is within each of these systems. He redeemed pagan mythologies and brought them under what he would call their proper order and name of the Trinity. He saw how an infinite God could relate to time yet did not mind leaving the discussion with questions dangling. He also saw how man could fit within the stars and his fellow man by having a faith in the redemption that is offered through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that is built upon love. Through all this, he opened the gates that allowed medieval philosophy to grow.
Works Cited
Plotinus. The Six Enneads. Great Books of the Western World. Ed. Mortimer J. Adler and Philip W. Goetz. Translated byStephen MacKenna and B. S. Page. Second Edition. Vol. 11. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; Robert P. Gwinn, 1990. Print.
Saint Augustine. The Confessions; The City of God; On Christian Doctrine. Great Books of the Western World. Ed. Mortimer J. Adler and Philip W. Goetz. Trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin, J. F. Shaw, and Marcus Dods. Second Edition. Vol. 16. Chicago: Robert P. Gwinn; Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1990. Print.