De utilitate credendi. Über den Nutzen des Glaubens (review)

Throughout history, and indeed in our own day, Augustine's three major works, Confessiones, De trinitate, and De ciuitate dei, have attracted much critical attention. Contemporary scholarship, however, has become conscious, more than previously, of the immense value of Augustine's minor works in assessing his development. From this perspective, De utilitate credendi has attracted penetrating criticism. This German edition consists of a presentation of the Zycha text of De utilitate credendi from the CSEL (somewhat ameliorated), a German translation, and an introduction and commentary. Published in 1992, this translation is part of Fontes Christiani, a series dedicated to publishing translations of, and commentaries upon, works of patristic and medieval Christian authors. Preparation of text in this edition appears well done, the translation good. However, the commentary, while of high standard, needs amplification.

A fundamental thesis of De utilitate credendi, written in 392 and the first work after Augustine's ordination, is the "uti-frui" distinction, begun in this work and achieving prominence in the writings throughout the last decade of the fourth century. In De doctrina Christiana I, written in 396, Augustine presents a Christian metaphysic and anthropology, founded on Sacred Scripture and the writings of Porphyry and Plotinus. All reality is divided into what men should enjoy (frui )—things divine—and what men should use (uti)—the remainder of reality. Man should use things material and temporal to attain enjoyment of things divine and eternal. Faith, in the sense of belief in Scripture and the salvific effect of the Incarnation, is numbered among those things to be used, is an indispensable precondition, to reach enjoyment of the Godhead. Augustine never retracts this distinction and, though some may object in light of Kantian principles, the distinction remains important in Augustine's thought through De ciuitate dei.¹

Of equal importance in understanding De utilitate credendi is an examination of the preface to the work—an analysis unaccountably missing from Hoffmann's introduction. In that preface, we find the following text:

But I presume that he to whom I am now consecrated will not desert me in this hope by which I hope that you [pl.] will obtain the way of wisdom with me. I am attempting day and night to gaze at him. Possessing an eye wounded because of my sins and the plague of old opinions, often tearfully, I recognise that I am not able. After a long blindness and darkness, eyes are scarcely open, and by trembling and turning away still refuse light which they nevertheless desire, especially if someone attempts to show them this sun. Exactly in this way it happens to me, not denying that an ineffable and unique good of the soul which is seen by the mind exists, and confessing with a tear and a sigh that I am not yet suitable to contemplate it.²

Frequently, prefaces to Augustine's works include passages essential to interpretation.³ Such is the case here. To those familiar with Augustine's early works, the importance of this passage, evidently addressed not merely to Honoratus, but to other readers as well, is immediately evident. Augustine is continually attempting, so he says, to gaze at God himself, i.e., to reach terminal enjoyment of God. Such a vision, he believes, can be realized in this life, but because of his own sins and lack of mental training (which he partially ascribes to his former adherence to Manicheanism) Augustine can not yet attain it. To Honoratus and others, he presents the goal of terminal vision in this life. Clearly, faith, and particularly faith in Scripture, is an indispensable preamble on the way to this vision. Such precisely is the "usefulness" of belief: it leads to the vision of God. The only aspect of this program which Augustine will modify—and that within two years—is his hope that even a few with divine aid can attain this vision permanently in this life.

Of course...