At 03:08 PM 10/10/99 -0400, you wrote:
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: [log in to unmask]
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Richard
>> Landes
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 1999 10:55 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: RE: history and apocalyptic prophecy - was Book of Revelation
>> topics
>>
>
>
>> >Augustine's views won out in
>> >large measure because of the power and cogency of his argument.
>>
>> here's where i differ significantly. augustine won posthumously
>> because he was
>> right (ie everyone who fell into the temptation to read history
>> prophetically
>> and announce the End for their own day (what i call apocalyptic
>> believers) were
>> wrong. those who said the fall of rome signalled the end (the
>> phenomenon that
>> prompted the book in the first place), were wrong. the issue for the
>> historian, hv, is not who was right, but who carried weight at
>> any given time.
>
>Again, just as we are in a position to judge the philosophical/theological
>soundness of Augustine's argument, so too were contemporaries.

this is a really good example of anachronism. it's like saying we are in as
good a position to judge the impact of y2k as people a decade from now. no.
if augustine says the fall of rome is not the end of the world, then it's not
nearly as obvious to his contemporaries than it is to later generations.
similarly in 1000, it's only in 1011 that byhrtferth triumphantly says, "see, i
told you augustine was right and 1000 is a symbolic number... the year 1000
passed 11 years ago. but before 1000, no matter how sure he was of this, his
ability to convince contemporaries was necessarily hindered by the viability of
the 1000 option.

>What is your
>evidence for the rather breathtaking conclusion that Augustine wrote the
>City of God to counter "those who said the fall of rome signalled the end
>(sic)?"

that you find it breathtaking is interesting. read courcelle on the xn
response to the taking of the city in 410, read augustine's sermo de excidio
urbis, read orosius intro to his history; read the debate with hesychius in
418-19, read quodvultdeus' book of promises. to read the end of the 4th and
beginning of the 5th as a period in which apoc expectation was not a vital part
of xn discourse, high and low, is to read history backward.

>Actually, his eschatological agnosticism occupies a relatively small
>space in the City of God, so why do you exaggerate it out of all proportion?

glad you think so. first of all, it is the climax (bks 19-22), second the
whole notion of the "two cities" comes from ticonius whose anti-millennial
anti-apocalyptic agenda was what drew augustine to his thesis in the first
place, and lastly augustine refers to his work against hesychius in these final
chapters and criticizes orosius' lack of understanding (ie inability to sustain
his agnosticism) as well. long after augustine feels he's put the "pagans" to
rest, he's still struggling with xn apocalyptic and millennial expectations.
and if orosius and quodvultdeus, two people who identify themselves as his
disciples didn't get it, what do you think the rest of the xn world was up
to... your modern skepticism? doubt it.

>> what seems like a powerful and cogent argument 1600 years later
>> may have struck
>> many contemporaries as a state of utter denial.
>
>Evidence?

some cited above. see my piece in Le Moyen Age 1992, as well as the
methodological discussion at the website "Roosters, Owls and Bats" or something
like that.

>> i suspect that far more people
>> followed apocalyptic bishops like hesychius of salonika than the austere
>> agnosticism of augustine (see Augustine, Epp.197-199).
>>
>I'd like to see the evidence.

read the letters and then we can talk. part of this is overcoming our temporal
prejudice: we know it wasn't the end of the world, and like to think that they
did too.

the first rule of millennial studies is "wrong does not mean inconsequential."
the second: "right does not mean convincing."

richard



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