Excerpts from St. Augustine’s Propositions on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans Part 1

I have not posted on this blog in a very long time and I do not want to leave this blog when I know it spurred me on to lots of interesting quotes from my patron saint, so I’ll try and post a bit now. Albeit you, dear reader, will have to bear smaller posts, since school, career, and health forbid me from writing more than just some tidbits here and there.

Below I’d like to post a few interesting tidbits from St. Augustine’s Propositions on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans which was written sometime during 394 AD and so about two or three years before the writing of “Miscellany of Questions in Response to St. Simplicianus”. In this manner, these propositions are a series of notes and writings from his conversations with the other members of the clergy in his vicinity. At this time St. Augustine was a priest for three years, and in the coming year he would succeed Valerius, the bishop in Hippo-Regius, as the bishop of Hippo. This is one of the earliest writings we have in which St. Augustine directly addresses some of the questions in Romans. St. Augustine does address the Law and grace in his earlier anti-Manichean works, but here we see his maturing theology of grace. (I'll write more at another time)

St. Augustine’s early synthesis on Grace, Law, and Predestination: An Overview Summary of the teachings in the Miscellany

I should have made this post a long while back before releasing my two outlines on the Miscellany of Questions in Response to St. Simplicianus, but here will be a main summary of St. Augustine’s view of justification, grace, law, and predestination as presented in the Miscellany. Much of what is presented in St. Augustine’s Miscellany shows up in the very late Augustinian corpus, such as St. Augustine’s usage of the Three Stages in life (lawlessness, imprisonment under the law, and finally the freedom of grace to fulfill the law), his development of original sin (in the second half of his miscellany is it fully developed), the primacy of grace, and many other things.

An Outline of “Miscellany of Questions in Response to St. Simplicianus”: The early Augustinian doctrine on Grace and Law (Question 2 of 2)

This post regards the second main question in the Miscellany of Questions in Response to St. Simplicianus, that is the proper way of understanding God’s election of the blessed, His reprobation of the damned, predestination in general, and how to reconcile this with the free will. It is a preliminary look by St. Augustine on what grace, the law, justification, and eternal predestination mean for the Catholic Church. Much of St. Augustine’s terminology and early thoughts will continue to be used further on by the saint in his doctrines of grace, though as with all things he sharpens them, though as far as I have read much of his early thought is only deepened, developed, looked to with greater care, and not much changes in the saint’s thoughts (recall he became a bishop during what we would call the middle of life [though in those times it was not very common for every person to reach St. Augustine’s age]). All of this account then precedes the Pelagian controversy, and it is remarkable to read the orthodoxy of St. Augustine’s theology of grace so early on, in fact it is beauty to the eyes to behold it. With all of this in mind then, let us proceed to strive to understand our holy father, St. Augustine, though I must warn that it gets quite bleak towards the middle of this document, do not be disheartened for the Church has not yet decided completely how to comprehend authoritatively God’s most ineffable mystery and revelation for man, the call to election and glory with Him in eternity. Read carefully and let me know if anything herein disturbs you. St. Augustine’s doctrine as it appears to me seems orthodox and true to the Gospel, but to the untrained eye and those young in the faith, may not understand entirely what the Doctor of Grace is explaining to us.

To go to the summary of this enormous post and the post that goes along with this post, go here:

Summary

An Outline of “Miscellany of Questions in Response to St. Simplicianus”: The early Augustinian doctrine on Grace and Law (Question 1 of 2)

Not very much is known to us regarding St. Simplicianus other than what is told to us through the mouth of St. Augustine and other contemporaries. His importance to the Church and to history have mainly regarded his influence on Sts. Ambrose and Augustine, as well as the conversion of famed philosopher Marius Victorinus, as well as his own bishopric in Milan, succeeding St. Ambrose. Having said this, St. Simplicianus is a saint, who’s feast day is on August 14th in the Ambrosian rite and August 16th, sometimes 14th or 13th, but never the 15th as it once was since the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is celebrated on this day. St. Simplicianus is thought to have been born around 320 AD, and died around 400 AD or 401 AD, of which he spent from 396 or 397 AD to his death as the successor of St. Ambrose as bishop of Milan. I won’t go much farther into the biographical details of St. Simplicianus, which can be found in the Confessions of St. Augustine or otherwise online.

[To go to the summary of this long post and the post that goes along with this post, go here:

Summary]

It was during his ascension to the bishopric of Milan (around the same time as St. Augustine’s rise to the bishopric of Hippo) that he asked St. Augustine a variety of questions regarding difficulties in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and difficulties in the Old Testament references used in St. Paul’s Epistle or otherwise. We will consider then in this article the two questions dealt with by St. Augustine regarding the Epistle to the Romans. Specifically the questions were: