Freud and Augustine in Dialogue: Psychoanalysis, Mysticism, and the Culture of Modern Spirituality

1. RHETORIC

29 P sychoanalytic explorations of the Confessions have led to the emergence of a major interpretive divide over whether the work is a predominantly biographical memoir or a predominantly rhetorical text intended to teach and instill belief. This interpretive divide in turn reflects differences in methodological persuasion. A central and often unchallenged assumption of psychoanalytic studies of the Confessions is that the subject of the psychological inquiry is none other than the historical Augustine. It is certainly possible to uncover the various complexes, fixations, and neurotic tendencies that animate the flow of Augustine’s narrative, just as one can do with analysands’ narratives in the clinical setting. If we assume that in some sense, human nature is universal, it is possible, by drawing on knowledge of clinical case-history material, to make reasoned judgments about the role developmental vicissitudes played in Augustine’s religious journey, and indeed , this is a modern pursuit of inestimable worth. It is advantageous to note the extent to which the bishop’s teachings on sexuality, for example, are not inscribed in a heavenly realm but are, at least to some extent, the product of sociohistorical and family determinants. What parades as essentialist religious teaching, if it is found to consist in part of projections rooted in a psychosocial matrix, can be successfully decomposed and altered. A different perspective, one most readily associated with literarytheological studies, holds that the narrative of the Confessions is not a case history, an autobiographical recollection imbued with fantasy material o n e RHETORIC 30 FREUD AND AUGUSTINE in DIALOGUE that, when rightly interpreted, reveals unconscious content. On the contrary , the Confessions is a literary and theological construct that reveals less the historical Augustine than a series of idealized character types and rhetorically elaborated (if not wholly fictional) events, all designed to portray a religious teaching about the nature of being human and the need for a God and savior beyond human comprehension and control. At its extreme, this view holds that the historical Augustine, the man behind the text, cannot be ascertained to the kind of determinative degree needed for legitimating a psychoanalytic evaluation. What we have here is what Diane Jonte-Pace calls “a quest for the rhetorical Augustine.”1 In between these two quite different approaches lies the possibility of a third kind of reading of Augustine, one that acknowledges the constructed nature of the text yet holds out the possibility that the psychobiographical enterprise, as one means of casting light on the shape of Augustine’s life and thought, may in some way be validated.2 The issue is how this intermediate position can be successfully described and implemented . It is to these three positions, the debates they prompt, and their impact on psychoanalytic interpretations of Augustine’s mysticism that this chapter is devoted. I will begin by taking a specific example, Augustine’s use of Virgil’s Aeneid, to illustrate the first two positions in detail. Then, focusing exclusively on the literary-theological perspective, I turn to exposing the constructed aspects of the mystical texts in the Confessions. In particular, I will scrutinize Augustine’s rhetoric in relation to the figure of Monica in the mystical ascent at Ostia. There is good reason for addressing this specific issue: reductive psychoanalytic analyses of Augustine’s mysticism center their evaluations on the presence of Monica in the text. It is on the strength of her presence that psychoanalysts are able to build their case for oedipal and preoedipal understandings of Augustine’s mysticism . To map out a line of argument that opens up a new psychoanalytic reading of Augustine’s mysticism, then, we must first clear the way for a more nuanced understanding of the role played by Monica at Ostia. The analysis undertaken in this chapter is thus foundational to the argument developed in the chapters to come. The Aeneid and Oedipus In book 1 of the Confessions, Augustine recounts the significant events of his early years. After making a few salient observations about the state of his soul in infancy, Augustine moves on to the embattled years of his RHETORIC 31 childhood. It is these years, important as they are to human development , that have been of particular concern in psychological studies. A case in point is a recollection revealing sexual content—one that, given other supporting evidence, could be interpreted as determinative for the course of Augustine’s sexuality and eventual conversion to...