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C h a p t e r 8 Discoveries Affirmed in the authenticity of his conversion and conformity, and ordained bishop of Hippo by Megalius himself, Augustine now occupied a place of authority within the Catholic Church, making him both more visible to assessments of conformity and more influential in defining what should count as conformity. A letter of congratulations arrived the following summer from the Milanese priest Simplician, whom Augustine would describe in Confessions as someone with whom he had consulted on spiritual matters in Milan prior to his conversion. Simplician expressed appreciation of Augustine’s writings (Ep 37.1–2), which would have been primarily his antiManichaean works, and posed a set of exegetical questions on which he welcomed his opinion (Ep 37.3). In reply Augustine wrote On Various Questions to Simplician (De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum).1 Why did Simplician , not only Augustine’s senior, but in many respects his catechizer, write to Augustine for help with the interpretation of the Bible? A quick look at the questions he asks shows that they all relate in some way to Manichaean interpretation of the New Testament, or criticism of the Old Testament.2 It would seem, then, that Simplician was turning to Augustine not so much as an expert in the Bible, as an authority on Manichaeism. Put more finely, he had seen some of Augustine’s earlier work which showed an informed and effective response to Manichaeism. Could he provide equally useful exegetical answers where the Bible appeared to play into Manichaean hands? Simplician’s two questions on passages from Paul struck right at the heart of Augustine’s ongoing struggle to reclaim Paul for a (now qualified) free-will position. We know that Simplician had sought a commentary or at Discoveries 275 least sermons on the Pauline epistles from Ambrose; but in that desire he was frustrated, for Ambrose was not ashamed to proof-text Paul liberally while assiduously avoiding the difficulties of the Apostle.3 Augustine, as an informed former Manichaean, was in the best position to rescue Paul from Manichaean interpretations that challenged Ambrose’s free will position.4 Simplician may have included with his letter a copy of Ambrose’s De Iacob, in which the bishop had belatedly addressed Paul’s rhetoric of a debilitated capacity to resist sin.5 Yet Ambrose showed no more concern with consistency in this work than he did in his others, contentedly paraphrasing Paul while seemingly oblivious of the cost to his own free will position. Perhaps Simplician hoped for a better defense of that position from Augustine. Augustine composed his replies over the winter of 396–397, and sent them with the reopening of sea travel the following spring.6 Numerous modern commentators—and already Augustine himself later in life—have noted that To Simplician vividly captures in text a revolution in Augustine’s understanding of Paul7 —“a dazzling exegetical volte-face”8 —entailing a collapse not only of the free will paradigm to which he had been converted, but also of the synergistic model of salvation by faith he had laboriously constructed in the years following his debate with Fortunatus. In his own characterization of what happened, “I strove on behalf of the free choice of the human will, but God’s grace conquered” (Retr 2.1). The importance of this conquest of grace for the subject of Augustine’s engagement with Manichaeism lies in the fact that Manichaeans provided the only precedent for such a reading of Paul in Augustine’s world. Defender of the Faith By now Augustine’s exegesis of Romans 7 was a matter of reflex. When the passage came up, he inevitably saw his task in light of the Manichaean challenge : defense of the Law against Paul’s apparent harsh characterization, and of free will against his rhetoric of servitude to sin. Accordingly, To Simplician 1.1, on this section of Romans, broke little new ground, as Augustine dutifully reiterated an interpretation intended to safeguard Paul from Manichaean appropriation on these two points. The Manichaeans took Paul’s negative characterizations of the Law9 at face value as a rejection of Old Testament values, while referring his positive remarks on the Law to the “Law of Christ.”10 The alternative exegetical -04-26 18:04 GMT) 276 chapter 8 traditions adopted within the Catholic Church fared no better in finding a single referent for everything Paul had to say about the Law.11 In his defense of the Law, Augustine...

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