Robert McMahon - Understanding The Medieval Meditative Ascent - Augustine, Anselm, Boethius, & Dante (2006, Catholic Univ of Amer PR) PDF

UNDERSTANDING THE
M E D I E VA L M E D I TAT I V E
ASCENT
Robert McMahon
UNDERSTANDING THE
ASCENT
Augustine, Anselm, Boethius, & Dante
The Catholic University of America Press

Washington, D.C.
Copyright © 2006
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum

requirements of American National Standards for Information
Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library materials,
ANSI Z39.48–1984.
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McMahon, Robert, 1950–
Understanding the medieval meditative ascent : Augustine,
Anselm, Boethius, and Dante / Robert McMahon.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8132-1437-5 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8132-1437-8 (alk. paper)
1. Devotional literature—History and criticism.
2. Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo. Confessiones.
3. Anselm, Saint, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1033–1109.
Proslogion. 4. Boethius, d. 524. De consolatione
philosophiae. 5. Dante Alighieri, 1265–1321.
Divina commedia. I. Title.
BV4818.M36 2005
248—dc22
2005007734
CONTENTS
Preface vii
1. The Meditative Ascent: Paradigm and Principles

Ascent and Return 1
The Interior Journey: Human Being as the Epitome of Being / 9
The Hierarchy of Being and Analogy / 13
Foreshadowing and Fulfillment / 22
The Meditative Ascent and Philosophical Content / 29
Numerological Structure / 34
The Pilgrim Figure / 44
Habits of Understanding / 53
Summary / 59
2. The Unity of Meditative Structure and Texture

in Augustine’s Confessions 64
Meditative Structure: Return to the Origin / 67
Meditative Texture and Pilgrim Figures / 77
Paradigm at the Climax: Book 13 / 97
3. A Moving Viewpoint: Augustine’s Meditative Philosophy

in the Confessions 109
Moving Viewpoint in the Small / 112
Moving Viewpoint in the Large: Books 2 and 8 / 119
Analogy: Friendship and Conversion / 131
Analogy and Reconfigured Understanding: Memory and Conversion / 142
Coda: The Hermeneutics of Meditation / 156
vi Contents
4. Meditative Movement in Anselm’s Proslogion 159

Structure of the Ascent / 165
Patterns in the Ascent / 174
Prayer and Understanding / 185
Reconfigured Understandings / 195
5. Recollecting Oneself: Meditative Movement

in The Consolation of Philosophy 211
Structure of the Ascent / 214
Metamorphoses of the Circle / 226
Diagnosis and Cure: Recollecting Oneself / 236
Numerological Structure / 249
Bibliography 267
Index 281
PREFACE
T H E W O R K S treated in these pages—Augustine’s Confessions,

Anselm’s Proslogion, Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy, and
Dante’s Commedia—are not the preserve of scholars in any single
field. They are studied and taught by historians, philosophers, and
theologians, as well as by specialists in literature and religious stud-
ies. Moreover, unlike most works from late antiquity and the Middle
Ages, they are not the preserve of specialists. They have long been
available in English translations. They are often taught to under-
graduates in Western civilization and humanities core courses.
Hence they are often taught by professors with no expertise in me-
dieval studies. In addition, the Confessions and the Commedia are
read by truth seekers outside the academy, and contemporary inter-
est in “the perennial philosophy” may well lead readers to the other
two as well. In short, these works transcend their times of origin and
continue to speak to a wide variety of readers.
The present book attempts to speak to all parts of this audience
by asking some fundamental questions about these works that spe-
cialists have tended to slight. These questions may be termed “liter-
ary,” for I learned to ask them by studying Dante’s Commedia.
Dante’s poem imaginatively elaborates the tradition of the medieval
meditative ascent, as it does so much else, and I hope to show how
its literary and philosophical patterns illuminate the Confessions, the
Proslogion, and The Consolation of Philosophy. The “literary” questions
I pose to these works generate some new considerations affecting
the philosophical, theological, and historical issues bruited by
scholars. I intend to show how each of these works has been careful-
ly designed by its author and how this literary form reveals the au-
vii
viii Preface
thor’s designs upon the reader. The meanings engendered by the

work are part and parcel of its literary structure and strategies. Hence
the following chapters ask and answer certain recurring questions:
How does this book “work”? What are its strategies, and how are
they designed to move a reader? What are the stages in this medita-
tive ascent to God, and how are they related to one another? The lit-
erary unfolding of a work is not a merely neutral framework that
contains meanings through explicit statement. Rather, this unfold-
ing is itself meaningful.
In other words, each of these works is simultaneously literary
and philosophical, and its philosophical meanings cannot be sepa-
rated from its literary structure. (I use the word philosophical to mean
both “philosophical and theological,” for the two are not separate
in these works.) In each, a given philosophical discussion receives
much of its particular character by the stage of the ascent in which it
occurs and the literary style of its expression. A meditative ascent is a
literary-and-philosophical unity. It is intended not merely to be read
through but also to be meditated upon. Hence its meanings derive
not only from what is said but also from what is implied, such as
the relations between the unfolding stages of the ascent.
Scholarship tends to separate “the literary” and “the philosophi-
cal” in these works, rather than understanding them as working to-
gether. For example, literary study of the Confessions tends to focus
on patterns of imagery and allusion in Books 1–9, while philosoph-
ical analysis tends to discuss issues in Books 10–13. “Memory” is a
long-standing topic in Augustine studies, and when students of this
topic turn to the Confessions they typically focus on Book 10 because
it contains an extended discussion of memory. Now it seems obvi-
ous that a philosopher interested in Augustine on “memory” should
attend to the passages where Augustine discussed it. But an under-
standing of the work’s literary structure as a meditative ascent would
broaden and complicate the issue. For the Confessions progress from
an autobiographical record of memories, in Books 1–9, to Book 10
Preface ix
on memory. Books 1–9 display Augustine’s memory in act. They

also contain some explicit reflections on his use of memory to con-
fess in God’s presence. In short, what Augustine had to say about
“memory” in the Confessions was by no means confined to its explic-
it discussion in Book 10. Yet because scholars tend to separate “the
literary” from “the philosophical,” they have not used Books 1–9 to
study Augustine on memory.
My subject, then, is the literary and philosophical unity of these
works: in each case, how “literary” structure and strategies shape its
“philosophical” meanings. Because specialists have often neglected
this unity in their pursuit of specific problems, I hope to show them
some new things about works they know well. Because a work’s lit-
erary structure and strategies prove fundamental to its character, I
hope to bring nonspecialists toward a coherent understanding of
each work as a whole. I assume only that a reader has some familiar-
ity with the work under discussion and desires to understand some-
thing more about it.
Certain features distinguish my treatment of these works. First,
the meditative ascent proves to be a genre and structure for the work
as a whole. The Christian-Platonist “ascent of the soul,” for exam-
ple, has been much studied by Augustine scholars, in the Confessions
as in other works. Yet they have been reluctant to recognize that the
Confessions as a whole unfolds as an ascent, though it has been
pointed out. In the present book, the Christian-Platonist ascent is
not simply a local topic, theme, or structure within a work but the
master pattern that governs the whole. Because the master pattern in
each case is a Christian-Platonist ascent, it proves to be no rigid con-
struct imposed on recalcitrant materials, but rather a flexible and
open form inherent in the author’s worldview. Understanding the
master plan clarifies the work and opens it up to new understand-
ings. In each case, I show how this literary pattern functions and
what it implies for the philosophical understanding of various pas-
sages.
x Preface
Second, each of these works proves to be a journey. This journey

character is not well understood, in my view, even when it is explic-
itly noted. For example, in his “Preface” to the Proslogion, Anselm
states that he wrote the work “under the guise [sub persona] of one
struggling to raise his mind to the contemplation of God.” Al-
though scholars have duly noted this movement in the work, few
have studied it carefully. Perhaps the overwhelming attention they
pay to the so-called ontological argument, in Chapters 2–4, has kept
them from seeing how the rest of the work reconfigures the under-
standings reached there. Here again, the “literary” pattern of the as-
cent as a whole affects the “philosophical” meaning of different pas-
sages in it.
Third, each of these works contains at least one pilgrim figure
making a journey, and in every case this figure is an “I,” for each
presents itself as autobiographical. The journey is not being made,
in a third-person narrative, by Everyman or Redcrosse or Christian.
Rather, the “I” speaks for himself. He may retell events that he has
experienced in the past, as do Dante and Boethius, or he may speak
in the present, as does Anselm—and Augustine does both. The “I”
in these works has so impressed readers over the centuries that they
have generally identified him with the author, even though they rec-
ognized that Dante’s journey is allegorical and that Boethius’s Lady
Philosophy is an allegorical fiction. Today we distinguish more care-
fully between Dante the poet and Dante the pilgrim, Boethius the
author and Boethius the prisoner. All the same, the “autobiographi-
cal” character of these pilgrim figures continues to appeal to readers,
for it involves us more deeply in their journeys.
Fourth, each of these works is meditative, not only explicitly but
implicitly. Their explicitly meditative character is well understood.
The Confessions proves to be an inquisitio veritatis, an “inquiry seek-
ing the truth” on various issues, as Augustine poses questions, haz-
ards answers, mulls them over, and prays his way toward under-
standing. The Proslogion, too, is a prayerful quest for truth, and The
Preface xi
Consolation of Philosophy, in a somewhat different way, meditates on

various themes as these recur in Philosophy’s instruction of
Boethius. Their implicitly meditative character, however, has hardly
been studied. One characteristic of these meditative ascents is their
tendency not to remark on the relations between their various
stages. Augustine did not describe Books 1–9 as “memories,” nor
did he say that because the power of “memory” enables individual
memories, its exploration in Book 10 proves a higher stage in his as-
cent. Rather, he left the relations between Book 10 and Books 1–9
for the reader to discover by meditating upon them.
In other words, the ascent proves meditative not only in its ex-
plicit style but also in its implicit structure. The meditative ascent
invites the reader to meditate on it, in order to understand it more
fully, for it implies meditative meanings by its very structure. Philos-
ophers have studied these works for their explicit teaching on vari-
ous topics. But Augustine’s philosophical achievement in the Confes-
sions as a whole surpassed what the work explicitly states on various
issues in its parts. The work as a whole contains implied, or medita-
tive, understandings in addition to its explicit, doctrinal statements.
Finally, for this reason each of these works unfolds as a spiritual
exercise in two different respects. First, the pilgrim figure in each
work undertakes the effort to explore various issues, at various
stages of his ascent. His spiritual exercise is explicit at each stage,
and readers participate in it insofar as they labor to understand
what the work is saying. This labor, naturally, may range from fol-
lowing the text, to interpreting it in one’s own words, to ruminating
on its movements and their implications. But, second, each work as
a whole invites readers to the further spiritual exercise of meditating
on what is implied by its structure as a Christian-Platonist ascent. By
definition, a meditative ascent is written from a moving viewpoint.
It invites us to discern its stages, to understand their ascending rela-
tions with one another, and to reflect on what these relations imply.
In a meditative ascent, “everything that rises must converge,” for its
xii Preface
goal is a vision of Unity. The convergence of its various strands is

never elaborated fully. The authors left that spiritual exercise for the
reader’s meditation.
In short, by treating each work as a literary and philosophical
unity, I hope to open it up to new understandings and clarify some
existing scholarly debates. A meditative philosophy goes beyond its
explicit doctrines. These doctrines are true, as far as they go, but they
only represent stages along the way, unless they occur at the climax
of the ascent. Sometimes they are explicitly revised at higher levels,
but most often they are implicitly reconfigured. Scholars have not
explored the implied understandings in these works because they
have not understood how the structure of the meditative ascent cre-
ates them.
This structure is best illustrated by Dante’s Commedia. Because
the principles governing its literary and philosophical unity are well
understood, Chapter 1 repeatedly draws on Dante’s poem to illus-
trate the structure and implications of the meditative ascent. Hence
Dante appears in my subtitle, even though he does not receive a sep-
arate chapter. Chapters 2–5 then use these principles to explore the
structure and implications of the Confessions, the Proslogion, and The
Consolation of Philosophy. The Commedia elaborates the details of its
meditative ascent more fully than its predecessors. Nevertheless, all
four works are governed by the same principles because all seek a
similar kind of literary and philosophical unity. The differences be-
tween them are obvious. The present book explores their common
ground.
One Christian-Platonist ascent, Bonaventure’s Journey of the
Mind to God, is given little attention here because it does not achieve
the same kind of literary and philosophical unity. For one thing, it
does not have a pilgrim figure. Bonaventure was directing an ascent,
not making one himself. The first word in his title, Itinerarium,
means “road map” as well as “journey,” and the book does not nar-
rate a journey but rather sketches a map to be followed by a reader
Preface xiii
experienced in meditation. For another, it is not clear to me that

Bonaventure used the ascent to create implied understandings, in
the way that Augustine and Anselm did. Although he made the
structure of his ascent explicit, his road map is so sketchy that I do
not find clearly implied meanings in the relations between it stages.
In short, Bonaventure’s Itinerarium, though illustrating a Christian-
Platonist ascent, departs significantly from the literary and philo-
sophical genre being studied here.
The present book has been written for nonspecialists as well as
specialists, and I must ask each to be patient with the different
needs of the other. By “nonspecialist,” I mean a nonmedievalist,
perhaps a scholar in another field who teaches one or more of these
works. On the one hand, the chapters are intended to be clear and
coherent expositions for the nonspecialist. Insofar as this is success-
ful, specialists may find a point belabored, but it should not be ob-
scure. On the other hand, nonspecialists may find that parts of this
book go beyond their interests. It deals with some long-standing
scholarly debates, and its attempt to open up new ways of under-
standing these works may exceed a nonspecialist’s familiarity with
them. I have tried to help both kinds of readers by dividing each
chapter into sections, with subheadings. They will not have to read
far in order to know whether the section interests them.
Chapter 1 describes the literary and philosophical structure of
the meditative ascent and what it implies, at least as far as this book
is concerned. It is the essential preliminary for the chapters that fol-
low. Much of it will be new to nonspecialists, and though specialists
are familiar with the exitus-reditus scheme, they are not familiar with
all its implications. After assimilating Chapter 1, the reader may go
directly to whatever chapter most interests him or her and expect to
understand it. Chapters 2–5 apply the ideas of Chapter 1 to specific
works, with two chapters on the Confessions because of its length
and complexity. The sequence of chapters moves from Augustine to
Anselm, rather than to Boethius, because the Proslogion, like the
xiv Preface
Confessions, unfolds as a prayer from beginning to end. This literary

strategy is not well understood, and so I have linked the works using
it in successive chapters.
Many friends have contributed to this book in various ways, and
it is a joy for me to mention them here. Robert M. Durling’s course
on the Commedia aroused my interest in the Christian-Platonist as-
cent in my first year of graduate school, more than twenty years ago.
In the course of directing my dissertation, he spoke with me often
about Augustine, Boethius, and Dante, sharing his thinking and
writing generously. I have lived so long with his ideas about the
Christian-Platonist ascent as a literary form that I cannot say what I
have taken from him and what I may have added on my own. More
recently, I am grateful for Todd Breyfogle’s friendship, conversation,
and encouragement. I tried out these and other ideas orally with
Todd, who did much to help me winnow them. This book was writ-
ten in no small part because he found my thinking on Augustine
and Anselm valuable. Todd also read the manuscript carefully, mak-
ing many suggestions for improvement of its manner and matter,
which I have tried to take.
Several friends contributed to this work in other ways. I am
grateful to Glenn Hughes, James Olney, Paul Olson, Zdravko Plan-
inc, and Greg Schufreider for giving me their books, from which I
learned a great deal, and to John Protevi for his Augustine bibliogra-
phy for holdings in the Louisiana State University library. Glenn
Hughes and Zdravko Planinc also encouraged this work from its be-
ginning some years ago, and conversations with Jim Babin, Ellis
Sandoz, Mary Sirridge, Stuart Warner, and David Walsh helped to
shape it. None of these good people, of course, is responsible for
whatever misinterpretations and infelicities may remain. Such
things of darkness I acknowledge as my own.
UNDERSTANDING THE
ASCENT
CHAPTER 1
THE MEDITATIVE ASCENT
Paradigm and Principles
T H E M E D I T A T I V E A S C E N T enacts an interior journey: the re-

turn of the soul in this life to God, the Origin and End of all things.
It is based on the exitus-reditus scheme of Christian-Platonism: just
as all things come forth (exitus) from God, so do all things, and es-
pecially human beings, return (reditus) to him. The immortal soul’s
return is necessarily accomplished after death, when it comes to
judgment. But the meditative ascent enacts an interior journey in
this life, because the soul longs for loving communion with its Di-
vine Source. “Seek God and ye shall live,” writes the Psalmist, and
the pilgrim on the meditative ascent seeks that more abundant life
in the presence of the living God.
The meditative ascent is both the interior journey and the writ-
ten work conducting it. As a meditative journey, it is not a mystical
rapture: it progresses by stages of philosophical and theological dis-
course, and it arrives finally at a discursive vision of divine things. It
is understood that God can abbreviate the ascent whenever he wills
by seizing the soul into his presence with a sudden influx of grace.
But though mystical raptus can be described, after a fashion, it is
nondiscursive and not a journey. Mystical grace is God’s work, not
ours. Nevertheless, God’s grace is understood to be continually pres-
ent in the meditative ascent, which implies the dialectic of human
seeking and divine drawing. The Divine Presence is not only the
End of the meditative quest but also its Origin, however obscurely
felt. As Jesus tells Pascal in the Pensees, “You would not seek me if
1
2 The Meditative Ascent
you did not possess me. Therefore be not troubled.”1 God is present
in every stage along the way.
“Meditative ascent” names both the journey itself and the writ-
ten work describing it, both the form of the quest itself and the liter-
ary form narrating it. Dante’s Commedia is the best known and most
obvious instance of this ascent, because the pilgrim’s journey proves
exterior as well as interior, and the poem retells it. According to its
fiction, Dante the pilgrim began “far from God,” having lost his way
in a dark wood, but his journey culminated with a vision of God in
the spiritual radiance of Heaven. So, too, the poem retelling this sto-
ry follows this movement. The journey took place in the past, while
the retelling of it—the poet’s “singing” of his poem—takes place in
the present, following the sequence of the journey. The pilgrim’s
journey to God purports to have been divinely willed and guided,
chiefly through three intermediaries: Virgil, Beatrice, and St. Bernard
of Clairvaux. Hence, though God himself appeared only at the end
of the journey, he was present from its beginning in Dante’s guides
and in the grace enabling it. The pilgrimage itself had three main
stages—Hell, Purgatory, and the heavens—each a distinct realm,
and the Commedia, concomitantly, has three distinct parts. As Dante
the pilgrim traveled through these realms, he was educated about
evil, vice and virtue, love, God’s ordering of the universe, the Trinity,
and so on. In this way, his exterior journey proved also to be an inte-
rior one, as his intellect and will were prepared for the vision of
God. Similarly, the poem records this education in its “original” se-
quence, so that readers may receive, as far as possible, the same edu-
cation as Dante the pilgrim. After the pilgrim experienced the divine
vision at the climax of his journey, he returned to earth to write the
poem that narrates it. The Christian-Platonist ascent thereby proves
the form of the pilgrim’s journey in the past and the poet’s retelling
of it in his poem.
1. Blaise Pascal, Pensees, translated by A. J. Krailsheimer, number 929, p. 320;

see also p. 324.
The Meditative Ascent 3
A meditative ascent, then, unfolds in stages, and each stage rep-

resents a level of discourse. In Dante’s Inferno, for example, speeches
tend to be relatively brief and filled with dramatic tension. Longer
discourses do not appear until the Purgatorio and the Paradiso, and
then on philosophical and theological topics, where there is no dra-
matic tension. In this way, Dante progressively heightens the style
and the subject of the Commedia in each of its parts.2 Hence, to un-
derstand a Christian-Platonist ascent as a whole, we must first grasp
the distinguishing features of each level. These are necessarily ex-
plicit in its central themes and key words. Second, we must under-
stand how the levels are related to one another and to the journey as
a whole. These relationships are never stated fully: they are left for
the inquiring reader to discover.
In other words, the meditative ascent is deliberately constructed
so that a full understanding demands not merely our reading, but
our meditation. This literary strategy, and the kinds of interpretation
it demands, have not received the attention they deserve. The distin-
guishing features of each level may be discovered by reading, but
discovering the relations between the levels demands something
more. Meditation cannot be separated from reading, for it may be
called “intensive reading.” More accurately, meditation implies re-
reading, and may be defined, for our purposes, as “deeply reflective
rereading.” A major distinguishing feature of a stage, like “memory”
in Book 10 of the Confessions, will be noted on a first reading. But
only a reflectively inquiring rereading will show us the place of
Book 10 in the ascent as a whole, and how it relates to what came
before and what comes after.
This point may be illustrated more fully by considering the pat-
tern of light and darkness imagery in the Commedia. Hell is dark,
2. For a more detailed analysis of how a level of discursive style reveals the
moral level of Dante’s characters, see Marcia Colish, The Mirror of Language: A
Study in the Medieval Theory of Knowedge, rev. ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1983), pp. 207–20.
and the souls there experience its darkness eternally, that is, con-
stantly and forever. The mountain of Purgatory is on the surface of
the Earth, and so the souls there experience the natural light and
darkness of day and night. The souls in the Empyreal Heaven experi-
ence the supernatural light of God’s presence eternally. There is an
obvious progression here, from eternal darkness to natural day and
night to eternal light. Since darkness is the absence of light, the pro-
gression moves from the defective to the perfect. Nowhere does
Dante remark explicitly on this pattern, much less comment on
what the quality of light in each realm means. These topics are left
for the reader’s meditation.
A meditative ascent is necessarily written from a moving view-
point, for it progresses to stages ever “higher”: to more comprehen-
sive categories, or to more fundamental considerations. Hence,
what is true at one stage is qualified by the new viewpoint emerging
at a higher stage.3 Key words, for example, acquire new meanings:
Virgil’s discourse on “love” in Purgatorio 17–18 offers a breadth of
perspective missing from “love” in Inferno 5, when spoken by the
adulteress Francesca.4 Often, however, the differences in meaning
are more subtle: “memory” means something slightly different in
Confessions 11.27–30, where the subject is “time,” than it did in the
exploration of memory in Book 10. The meditative ascent is not like
an argument composed of a single set of coherent statements.
Rather, each level is like a set of coherent statements, and the whole
journey proves an ascending sequence of these sets of statements.
3. I take the formulations in this paragraph from Bernard Lonergan, Insight:

A Study of Human Understanding, edited by Frederick E. Crowe and Robert Doran,
in Collected Works, Vol. 3 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), pp.
17–19. Like a meditative ascent, Insight was written “from a moving viewpoint”
in order to foster the reader’s self-development.
4. All my references to and quotations from Dante are taken from La Divina
Commedia, edited and annotated by C. H. Grandgent, revised by Charles S. Sin-
gleton (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972); all translations are
mine.
Ascent and Return 5
The set of statements at each level is explicit, but what the relations
between stages are, and how the sequence works as a whole, is left
to the reader’s meditation.
Moreover, the moving viewpoint in the work lends it a kind of
dramatic structure: it progresses from level to level climactically
(Greek climax, “ladder”). Like the finale of a literary work, and un-
like the structure of most arguments, the end is unforeseen, and
thus surprising. We cannot see where the meditative journey is go-
ing until we arrive at its end, though in retrospect we can under-
stand it as a coherent whole. This dramatic quality is further empha-
sized by the narrative voice of the pilgrim figure. Like Dante the
pilgrim, Augustine, Anselm, and Boethius all seek, ask questions, in-
quire and reflect, suffer perplexity and anguish, give thanks and
praise, and so on, as part of their meditative journeys. These dramat-
ic movements in a pilgrim’s voice involve the reader in the quest
emotionally as well as intellectually. The meditative ascent, then, is
written from a moving viewpoint, in its structure of ascent from
stage to stage and in the textures of its narrative voice (or the voices
of its characters). In this way, the reader is moved, by feeling and
thought together, along the pilgrim’s way.
These considerations will be developed and illustrated over the
rest of this chapter. They provide the framework for exploring the
works by Augustine, Anselm, and Boethius over the rest of this
book. This framework emerges from the paradigm of the exitus-redi-
tus scheme: the meditative ascent enacts an interior journey, the re-
turn of the soul to God, the Origin and End of all things.
Ascent and Return

Let us consider the paradigm implied in the key terms “ascent”
and “return,” both of which are images. An ascent, by definition, in-
volves movement “upward,” to higher and higher levels. A return
necessarily involves movement “back.” God is the goal of this ascent
and return, and he is traditionally imaged as “above” us, for he is
perfect, and prior to us, for he creates all things. According to this
image paradigm, then, the “ascent to God” is also a “return to the
Origin,” where movement forward is simultaneously upward, to
higher levels, and backward, to earlier states or conditions.
The imagery is best illustrated by Dante’s Paradiso. The poem is
set in the geocentric universe, where the Moon, the Sun, and the
other stars move around the stable Earth, each on their spheres. As
Dante the pilgrim ascends successively to the spheres of the Moon,
Mercury, Venus, the Sun, and so on, he is met by souls who come
down from Heaven to teach him. His forward movement proves an
upward and “backward” movement toward God, the Origin of all
things, for the divine energy quickening the creation pours down
into it from above. In the course of this ascent, Dante encounters
three of his “fathers” and each successive one is earlier. In Paradiso
15, he is greeted by Cacciaguida, a crusading knight of the twelfth
century and the first nobleman in Dante’s lineage. In canto 26 he
speaks with Adam, the biblical father of us all. Finally, in canto 33,
he sees God, the Original in whose “image and likeness” we are
made. Each of these is not only earlier in time but also progressively
greater as a “father.”
Dante’s ascent to what is “prior” and “higher” proves an image
of his growth in knowledge. Because the heavenly spheres of the
Paradiso are arranged concentrically around the Earth as their cen-
ter, as the pilgrim moves higher he encompasses more of the uni-
verse beneath him. Concomitantly, as he ascends to higher, more
comprehensive spheres, he is given higher, more comprehensive vi-
sions about the divine order of things. Most of these visions are dis-
cursive, but they lead toward and culminate in Dante’s vision of
God in Paradiso 33. Thomas Aquinas’s discourse on the Creation
(13.52–87), for example, is surpassed by Beatrice’s discourse sixteen
cantos later (29.13–36): she treats the same issues in briefer com-
pass by using more general categories, and her primary subject, the
creation of the angels, is earlier and higher than his, the creation of
Ascent and Return 7
Adam. Beatrice’s discourse is further surpassed, in brevity and com-

prehensiveness, by the pilgrim’s vision of God, when he sees all the
possibilities of being existing in a “simple light” (33.90), “bound
with love in a single volume” (33.86).
But what does this language of “higher” and “prior” mean for
thinkers who do not give us images, as Dante does? The sense of
these terms may be illustrated by the movement in the Confessions
from autobiographical memories, in Books 1–9, to memory, in
Book 10.5 First, logically, memories imply the power of memory:
memory is logically prior to memories. Second, for Augustine, the
power of memory actually preexists the memories it contains.
Though a modern thinker might argue that the accumulation of
memories creates the memory, Augustine believed that memory was
an innate human capacity: human beings acquire memories be-
cause they first possess the innate power we call “memory.” In short,
there can be no memories without memory. Memory, then, is prior
to memories both logically and ontologically.
Hence, memory also proves “higher” than memories because it
governs and contains them. The various kinds of memories we have
depend upon the nature of memory itself. As a preexisting innate
capacity, memory is oriented to certain kinds of activity, and this
orientation enables it to do some things, and not to do others. Ob-
viously, the memory is fitted to remember: it does not fashion ob-
jects and it cannot (by definition) predict the future, though it may
be used in the process of fabrication or prediction. The memory
contains its memories and thus orders and recollects them. The
power of memory is higher than its memories because it controls
their acquisition and contains them for recall.
Paradoxical though it may sound, memory is higher than mem-
5. Kenneth Burke points this out in The Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logolo-
gy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968), p. 124. He
sets out his understanding of “the Platonic dialectic” in the Confessions most fully
on pp. 141–57.
ories because it is their ground. “Ground” is an image of founda-

tions, while “higher” implies an upper level. But in the paradigm
governing the meditative ascent, God is the highest End and the
ultimate Ground, or Origin. Hence, “higher” also means “deeper,
more fundamental.” Because the way forward is simultaneously the
way upward and back, progress to higher and higher levels involves
the movement of discourse to ever deeper, more fundamental con-
siderations. In sum, memory is higher and deeper than memories
because it governs them as their ground, prior to them both logical-
ly and ontologically.
Thus, the Confessions’s movement from memories, in Books 1–9,
to memory, in Book 10, marks a progress to what is higher, deeper,
and prior. This directionality is furthered in Book 11, where the sub-
ject is “time.” Time is prior to memory, logically and ontologically,
for time is the precondition for memory: there can be no memory
without time. Because time is prior to memory, it is also “higher”:
time, as it were, contains memory and thereby proves a more com-
prehensive aspect of created being. Hence time is deeper than mem-
ory, for it is the ground of memory. Because memory is based in
time, one cannot fully understand memory without understanding
time. As the Confessions progresses from memories to memory, and
from memory to time, it ascends meditatively, in a return to the Ori-
gin, to principles of being steadily higher, deeper, and prior. This
progress is never explicitly remarked in the work. Augustine left it
for the reader’s meditation.
The “return to the Origin” of being ascends through ever higher
principles of being, for principles are “firsts,” etymologically and
philosophically, and God is the First. Memory is a principle of
memories, and time is a principle of the power of memory. Hence,
in this ascent to principles, “the last are first, and the first are last”:
what comes later in the narrative is actually prior in reality. God is
the End, or goal, of the journey and the Beginning of all things. The
return to the universal Principle thus necessarily passes through a
The Interior Journey 9
series of principles steadily higher and prior: more fundamental,

more universal. The Christian-Platonist ascent thereby enacts, in its
literary form, a version of Jesus’ eschatological reversal of earthly
priorities: its meditative movement to the last things that are really
first aims to awaken the eschatological perspective in the pilgrim
soul.
The Interior Journey: Human Being as

the Epitome of Being
From this perspective, we can begin to understand the character
of the interior journey. It proves no mere traveling in the inner
realms of psyche and spirit. Rather, it has direction: to ever more
fundamental constituents of our being. “Higher” and “prior” mean
“deeper”: the interior journey is a journey into the interior. As we
gradually penetrate the depths of our being, we come closer and
closer to the Ground of being, and so we encounter reflectively, at
each stage, more fundamental aspects of all being. In the Christian-
Platonist tradition, we cannot plumb the depths of being by looking
outward. To encounter the living God, we must turn inward. As Au-
gustine put it, “Do not go abroad. Return within yourself. In the in-
ward man dwells Truth.”6
The return to God depends on this return into oneself. To be
sure, Christian Platonists recognized the evidence of God’s glory in
creation, for the visible world mirrors the invisible things of God,
“even his eternal power and divinity” (Rom 1:20). Nevertheless, the
meditative ascent demands a conversion: the pilgrim turns away
from things outside him (extra se) to those within him (intra se),
and with proper guidance and grace he eventually comes to the Di-
vine Presence above him (supra se). This pattern underlies every
meditative ascent in the Christian-Platonist tradition. Though visi-
6. Augustine, Of True Religion, Introduction by Louis O. Mink, translated by J.

H. S. Burleigh (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1959), 29.72, p. 69.
ble evidence of the invisible God can be found in the beauties of

creation, the pilgrim encounters God himself not by looking out-
ward with the senses, but by turning inward with the mind.
This pattern is evident in the Commedia. Dante the pilgrim’s
journey begins with the first verb of the poem, “I found myself
again” (mi ritrovai; Inf. 1.2). This conversion, a self-recognition and
a turning toward himself, liberates him from his involvement in the
dark wood and so enables him to begin his journey upward, toward
the light. This inward turn both eventually leads to and obscurely
foreshadows his vision of the risen Christ at the end of his pilgrim-
age. Because Christ is the pilgrim’s divine Original and resurrection
is his predestined end, the pilgrim’s final vision proves his highest
self-recognition in the poem. The broad pattern of Dante’s cantiche
also embodies the movement from things outside oneself to things
inside and above. The Inferno concerns external things—sounds,
sights, conversations—with no philosophical discourses directing
the pilgrim to look inward. The Purgatorio, however, marks an in-
ward turn not only in its philosophical discourses but in its concern
with the imagination in art and in dreams. In other words, while the
Inferno is taken up with the things of the senses perceived “outside
oneself” (extra se), the Purgatorio also concerns things of the imagi-
nation and philosophical reason “within oneself” (intra se). The
Paradiso then narrates an ascent into the heavens “above oneself”
(supra se) with a series of progressively “higher” theological dis-
courses leading to the pilgrim’s vision of God.
Although one turns inward in order to ascend upward, it is un-
derstood that the “height” of God’s presence lies in the soul’s deep-
est interior. Augustine called this inner divine dwelling-place the
anima animi, literally, “the soul of the mind,” but, more accu-
rately, “the life-principle of all one’s human powers, perceptual,
emotional, and rational.” At one point, the narrator of the Confes-
sions addresses God as “more inward than my innermost and higher
than my uppermost” (interior intimo meo et superior summo meo;
The Interior Journey 11
3.6.11).7 Interior intimo meo may be freely rendered as “more in-

ward to me than I am to myself.” Because God creates human be-
ings in “his image and likeness,” the Divine Presence is the Ground
of every human being: prior to the psychological self formed by ex-
periences, and so deeper and higher than the self. The interior jour-
ney is a journey into the interior of the soul, where the divine Origi-
nal is the living source of the “image and likeness” each human
being is.
But this interior journey leads to the Ground not only of human
beings, but of all created being. It thereby moves to aspects of exis-
tence that are gradually more general, comprehensive, universal,
and fundamental. We have already seen how Dante’s Paradiso pro-
vides an image of this progress in the pilgrim’s ascent to higher,
more comprehensive, heavenly spheres, where he is given progres-
sively more comprehensive visions of the divine order. The Confes-
sions, too, as we saw, reflects progressively on memories (Books
1–9), on memory (Book 10), and on time (Book 11). The autobio-
graphical memories are Augustine’s alone, while memory is an in-
nate power of every human being, and time is a constituent of
everything in the visible creation. The higher the discursive level, the
more universal its exploration: from one man, to all human beings,
to all material beings. Just as a mountain hiker’s view of the land-
scape below increases in scope the higher she climbs, so the philo-
sophical scope of the meditative ascent grows broader as it moves
higher. The higher the category of being that the meditation ex-
plores, the broader its scope, the more it governs, and the more fun-
damental, or universal, it is.
Now we moderns tend to think of these higher categories of
being as mere names for abstractions, but this is not the Christian-
7. All Latin quotations from the Confessions in this book are taken from Sant’
Agostino, Le Confessioni, edited by Martin Skutella, revised by Michele Pellegrino
(Rome: Citta Nuova, 1965); all translations are mine. I have profited by consult-
ing the translations by John K. Ryan and by Henry Chadwick.
Platonist view. We locate the real in the perceived, the concrete spe-
cific thing. An object seems to us more real than the memory of an
object, the specific memory is more real than the power of memory,
which itself is more real than time. For us, the greater the specificity,
the more information is conveyed, the more real the experience.
Hence, the higher the category of being, the vaguer it is, and the less
real it feels. But for Christian Platonists, the index of reality lies not
in perceptual specificity of information, but in universality and
what may be called “lastingness.” For us moderns, the water-oak
outside my window is more real than the biological idea “water-
oak,” but for Christian Platonists the idea applies to more beings
and endures far longer than the water-oak outside my window. In
other words, when the Confessions moves from memories, to memo-
ry, to time, it progresses more deeply into reality. For us, what feels
real seems more real than an idea, which is a “mere idea” or “mere
words.” But for the tradition of the meditative ascent, what feels real
is less real than an idea, because feelings are fleeting and ideas en-
dure. Ideas, in this sense, are Platonic Forms, and these are held to
have real and eternal existence in the mind of God. The meditative
ascent understands itself not as a movement to ever more abstract
and vague categories, but as a journey into reality. It culminates in a
discursive “vision of God,” and God is no vague abstraction but the
ultimately living Reality.
The interior journey, then, penetrates reality because it progress-
es into the interior not only of the human being, but of all being.
This penetration is enabled by the Christian-Platonist understanding
of the human being as “the epitome of being.” In this tradition, we
humans are unique in creation: we are the only beings simultane-
ously material and spiritual. The animals below us in the hierarchy
of being are material, but not spiritual: they have bodies, but not im-
mortal souls. The angels above us in the hierarchy are spiritual, but
not material: they have immortal spirits but lack material bodies.
Only human beings participate simultaneously in the material and
the spiritual, the visible and the invisible, creation. Hence, according
The Hierarchy of Being and Analogy 13
to this tradition, we are the only reflective, discursive intelligences in

existence. The animals have their own kinds of intelligence, but be-
cause they do not have articulate languages, animal intelligence is
neither discursive nor reflective. The angels, being pure spirits, do
not need linguistic sign systems to communicate, for they commune
with one another and with God by direct intuition. In short, we are
the only beings in the visible creation who can reflect upon, and so
give voice to, all aspects of being, for we alone participate in matter
and spirit, time and eternity.8 Hence, the meditative journey into our
own depths leads to progressively more universal aspects of being
on the way to encountering the Ground of all being.
In sum, the meditative ascent, as an interior journey and a re-
turn to the Origin, progresses to levels ever higher, deeper, and prior.
It understands itself as a journey into ever more comprehensive,
fundamental, universal, and governing principles of being. Though
these are necessarily named in categories of ever increasing generali-
ty and abstraction, the interior journey understands itself as pro-
gressing discursively into ever greater realities, until it arrives at Ulti-
mate Reality. Understanding a meditative ascent involves grasping
how this progress is actually worked out. Christian-Platonist au-
thors often did not state the relations between levels in the ascent,
but left them for the reader’s meditation.
The Hierarchy of Being and Analogy

This sketch for understanding the relations between levels in the
meditative ascent needs to be filled out. The Christian-Platonist tra-
8. For fuller treatments, see C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction

to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1964), pp. 152–69; and Patrick Boyde, Dante Philomythes and Philosopher: Man in
the Cosmos (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 270–95. Modern
restatements of this anthropology are argued by Josef Pieper, in Leisure: The Basis
of Culture, translated by Alexander Dru, with an Introduction by T. S. Eliot (Indi-
anapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 1998), pp. 82–97; and by E. F. Schumacher, A Guide
for the Perplexed (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), pp. 1–38.
dition offers two useful models: a philosophical one, “the analogy

of being,” and a literary one, foreshadowing and fulfillment in a
plot. But because the meditative ascent proves to be simultaneously
a literary and a philosophical genre, there is considerable overlap in
the interpretive consequences of these two models, and to a great
extent they are interchangeable. Nevertheless, each has value and we
shall consider both in turn.
The ancients held that Being manifests itself in the visible world
in different kinds of beings, and these could be ordered on differ-
ent levels: inanimate things, plants, animals, and human beings.
Though a piece of rose quartz, a water-oak, a dog, and a person all
possess existence as a fact, they were held to enjoy different powers
of existing on an ascending scale. The rose quartz has existence, but
not life; a water-oak has existence and life, with its capacities for
nourishment, growth, and reproduction, but not locomotion; a dog
has existence, life, and locomotion, with the powers of perception
and memory needed for survival once a being has locomotion; and
a human being has all these powers augmented by “reason” (lan-
guage, reflective understanding, intuition). Thus there is a Ladder or
a Scale of Being (as in a musical scale, a ladder of notes: Latin scala,
“ladder, stairway”). The higher levels have the capacities of the lower
ones but realized in a more complex way, as animal digestion is
more complex than a plant’s assimilation of nutrients. With respect
to the fact of existence, then, “being” means the same thing for every
existing thing, but, when we consider the capacities that different
things have, “being” has a somewhat different meaning.
The “analogy of being” is a way of bridging this sameness of exis-
tence and differences in capacity.9 Though the analogy of being was
9. For a fuller treatment, see Ralph M. McInerny, The Logic of Analogy: An In-
terpretation of St. Thomas (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961). Marcia L. Colish,
The Mirror of Language: A Study in the Medieval Theory of Knowledge, rev. ed. (Lin-
coln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), pp. 142–51, offers a useful brief ac-
count.
explicitly developed in the thirteenth century by Thomas Aquinas, it

offers a useful way of thinking about the different meanings that key
words have on different levels of discourse. Hence, it can help us to
understand what Augustine, Anselm, Boethius, and Dante were do-
ing with their language at different levels in their ascents. Although
the first three did not have the “analogy of being” as an intellectual
instrument for reflecting on their uses of language, the hierarchy of
being was a cultural commonplace, and all three were not only bril-
liant writers but also sophisticated philosophers of language.10 They
knew what they were doing, and “the analogy of being” can help us
think about what they actually did.
“Analogy” comes from a Greek word meaning “proportion”: all
beings share the fact of existence, but higher beings have a greater
proportion of being, considered as capacities or powers. This will
become clearer by considering what “goodness” means when predi-
cated of beings at different levels. “A good piece of rose quartz,”
spoken by a mineralogist, means that this rose quartz is a represen-
tative specimen: it illustrates clearly the color and crystalline struc-
ture of the rock. “A good water-oak,” spoken by my tree specialist,
means that it remains living and strong: the roots will probably
hold through the next hurricane. “A good dog” has a goodness more
complex than the health of a water-oak—obedience and affection,
perhaps even special skills (those of a guard dog, for example, or of
a hunting dog, or a herding dog). When we consider the goodness
of “a good person,” so many different qualities, virtues, and skills
are relevant that it would be difficult to list them all. In all these in-
stances, the meanings of “good” are related, as it were, “proportion-
10. For Augustine and Anselm in this regard, see Marcia Colish, The Mirror of
Language, pp. 7–109. For Boethius, see Henry Chadwick, Boethius: The Consola-
tions of Music, Theology, and Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), pp.
108–73; and Jonathan Barnes, “Boethius and the Study of Logic,” in Boethius: His
Life, Thought, and Influence, edited by Margaret Gibson (Oxford: Blackwell,
1981), pp. 73–89.
ally” or analogously. The beings at higher levels in the Scale of Being

have higher degrees of goodness: richer, more powerful, more com-
plex, more difficult to attain, harder to spell out fully in words.
When we go on to say that “God is good,” the proportionality
far exceeds our understanding. As the Ground of Being, God is the
Source of all goodness, and therefore far beyond our comprehen-
sion. We finite beings can understand finite goods, but not infinite
Goodness. When Christian Platonists affirm that “God is good,” the
“analogy of being” argues that the assertion is true, but we do not
know fully what it means. God’s goodness is proportional to ours in
the same measure that his Infinite Being is to finite being.
Now the meditative ascent, as we have seen, mounts to levels of
discourse steadily higher, or more universal, until it arrives at a
vision of God. The analogy of being provides a model for under-
standing these levels and their relations: key words have analogous
meanings at different levels in the ascent. These meanings are “pro-
portional”: not precisely the same, yet not different. In this light,
two interpretive tasks emerge: to assay the different meanings at dif-
ferent levels, and then to describe how they are related. These tasks
can be illustrated by considering the meaning of “love” in Dante’s
Commedia at three different points, one each in Hell, Purgatory, and
Paradise.
Inferno 5 describes the circle of “the carnal sinners” in Hell. Their
punishment is to be blown about by a whirlwind, like birds in a
fierce storm—an image of the passions to which they surrendered
themselves. There Dante encounters Paolo and Francesca, and Fran-
cesca tells him of their adulterous love affair. In Francesca’s mouth,
“love” points to the romantic passions of the courtly love tradition
in Italy: “love” is personified as a godlike power that seizes a “noble
heart” and compels a person to fall in love (Inf. 5.100–105). Love
enters “through the eyes,” as the perception of physical beauty
arouses desire, and nobility of heart compels a response. Francesca’s
two speeches are so moving, her self-justification so successful, that
it is easy to forget that she is being punished for adulterous lust.

Generations of readers, caught up by her sense of her romantic
tragedy, failed to notice her self-centeredness, her narcissistic sense
of her own beauty, and her subtle manipulations of her lover, of
Dante the pilgrim, and themselves. In Inferno 5 Dante portrays
“love” as lust, glorified by Francesca as romance.
In Purgatorio 17–18, Virgil gives a philosophical discourse on
love as “the seed” of every human act, whether it merits reward or
punishment (Purg. 17.103–5). Clearly, “love” in this context is a
word for “desire in general.” Here, at the center of the whole poem,
is a discourse on the motive of human acts at a high level of general-
ity. The analysis is derived from Aristotle. The appetitive movement
of “love” may be described as a horizontal circle, with three stages:
(1) the desirability (goodness, beauty) of an object (2) is perceived
and arouses desire in the perceiver, (3) who then pursues the desir-
able object so as to enjoy it (Purg. 17.127–29, 18.19–33). Desire,
described as an “inclination” toward the desirable object, is auto-
matic, or necessary: you cannot perceive an object as desirable with-
out desiring it. The perception of something desirable involves de-
siring it, by definition (18.49–60). But though desire is automatic,
pursuit is not: you can choose to restrain yourself. Between the de-
sire and the pursuit to enjoy comes “the threshold of consent”
(Purg. 18.61–63). Francesca and Paolo crossed this threshold when
their love moved to adultery. Virgil’s discourse clarifies both the ne-
cessity in their loving one another and their culpability in acting
upon it.
Now Virgil’s philosophical discourse on love is true, as far as it
goes, but it only goes so far. As a pagan thinker, Virgil gives a valu-
able analysis of desire in the context of this world, yet he is aware
that his understanding is limited (Purg. 18.46–48). He simply ac-
cepts the desirability of objects, for he does not explain it, nor does
he account for why human beings desire. From Dante’s Christian
perspective, a pagan cannot explain these things because classical
thinkers did not believe in God’s creation of the world. At most,

they imagined cosmic beginnings as a kind of birth process, never as
God’s creation out of nothing. Aristotle thought that the universe
existed everlastingly. Partly on this basis, Thomas Aquinas argued
that God’s creation of the world could not be discovered by reason,
but only by revelation. For if reason could have discovered that
truth, a thinker of Aristotle’s acumen would have done it.
In other words, Virgil’s philosophical analysis of love needs to
be completed by theology. The “horizontal circle” of love in Virgil’s
analysis is completed, and thereby rendered coherent, by the “verti-
cal circle” of God’s love establishing the goodness of creation. In
this understanding, objects are good because they reflect God’s
goodness, and every human desire implies the desire for God. For
Dante, the Christian Bible reveals that God made the world for hu-
man beings, God’s “image and likeness,” and human beings to en-
joy eternal life with him. Because the human capacity of desire is
oriented ultimately to God, it remains fundamentally insatiable in
this world. Hence, also, desire for any particular good implies a
longing for the ultimate Good. In Augustine’s famous sentence,
“Lord, you created us toward yourself, and our heart is restless until
it rests in you” (Conf. 1.1.1).
Dante’s imagery in the Paradiso situates the “horizontal circle”
of this-worldly loving in the “vertical circle” of the exitus-reditus
scheme and finds the latter within the Trinity. The Father’s Love for
the Son through the Holy Spirit creates, sustains, and governs the
world, and the goodness and beauty of the universe reveal the good-
ness and beauty of the Trinity (Par. 10.1–27). In the final canto,
Dante sees all the variety of the universe in the single point of the
divine Light, “bound with love in a single volume” (Par. 33.86).
God is not “outside” the universe: the universe, with all its possibil-
ities of being, exists within God (85–93)! Soon Dante is given a
mysterious image of the Trinity: the single point of Light expands
into three spinning circles, with three colors yet a single circumfer-
ence, and the fiery circle (the Holy Spirit, or Love) moves between
the other two (115–20). Hence, the vertical circling of cosmic pro-
cession (exitus) and return (reditus) lies within the Trinity: the cos-
mic process proves but a part of the Trinity’s dynamism of love. Fi-
nally, in the second circling appears the human form, the risen
Christ. Creation is fulfilled in Incarnation and Redemption, when
God himself entered the cosmic exitus-reditus to redeem human be-
ings in history. The vertical circling of infinite Trinitarian Love thus
proves the Ground of all the circlings of love. Its surpassing manifes-
tation is Christ’s incarnational descent, to life and death, and resur-
rectional return.
Inferno 5, Purgatorio 17–18, and Paradiso 33 lie far apart from
one another in the hundred cantos of the poem and in Dante’s jour-
ney. Physical distance thereby reflects the semantic differences in the
meanings of “love.” Francesca speaks in the first circle of Hell, the
underworld below the earth’s surface; Virgil’s discourse takes place
well up the ascent of Purgatory, “the highest mountain on earth”;
the vision of God in Paradiso 33 takes place in Heaven, beyond the
bounds of the universe. The relative physical height at which “love”
is considered reflects the relative universality of the discourse, and
hence its philosophical depth. Because the stages of Dante’s journey
are so clearly marked, the different discursive levels in its explo-
ration of “love” emerge with great clarity.
How should we understand these levels and the relations be-
tween them? First, they are united in an “analogy of love.” Different
as the meanings of “love” are at these three levels, a family likeness
links them: their meanings are not radically different. They can be
seen to form a Scale, or hierarchy, of forms of love. Indeed, “love” is
so fundamental to Dante’s poem that the whole journey may be un-
derstood as an ascent on a Ladder of Love.
Second, as I have suggested, the higher level clarifies certain de-
tails at a lower level. God’s “vertical” love in creating explains why
things are lovable “horizontally,” in this world. The Paradiso thereby
makes Virgil’s discourse on love more fully coherent. Moreover, Vir-

gil’s discourse elucidates Francesca’s insistence that love is automat-
ic, for he qualifies it with this distinction: desire is automatically
aroused by the perception of what is desirable, by definition, but we
need not pursue the object of our desire. In this way, Virgil’s dis-
course clarifies what is true, and what is false, in Francesca’s insis-
tence. This is what we would expect from a hierarchy of understand-
ings in a Christian-Platonist ascent: higher levels of discourse, being
more universal, have more truth than lower ones. As the image of
“ascent” suggests, one sees further, and so understands more, at
higher levels: a more comprehensive discourse, by definition, ex-
plains details on a lower level.
Third, the highest level in the ascent thereby proves the most im-
portant. As the most comprehensive and most fundamental dis-
course, it explains the most. For just as God is the Origin and End of
the journey, so the discursive vision of God proves the ground, as
well as the climax, of the journey’s record. Because God compre-
hends all being in the Christian-Platonist ascent, its climactic vision
of God simultaneously surpasses, contains, and underlies all its
lower levels. In the final canto of the Commedia, Dante sees the Trin-
itarian Love containing the universe and energizing all its activity.
This Love is the Ground of every form of love in the universe of the
poem. Hence, every lower love in the work may be fully understood
only in relation to the vision of God that concludes it. Francesca
does not know that her love for Paolo is grounded in the divine
Love, that his desirable goodness reflects the divine Goodness.
Hence, she does not know that her desire for Paolo represents, in a
distorted way, a desire for God. But a theologically literate reader
knows these things, and anyone who reads the whole Commedia be-
comes theologically literate enough to reflect on Inferno 5 with these
things in mind.
Nevertheless, the lower levels of a meditative ascent are not sim-
ply expendable. The ascent is not like Wittgenstein’s ladder, to be
cast aside after using it to climb to a new understanding. Virgil’s dis-

course on love is not repeated in the Paradiso: the new perspectives
given there by the images of divine Love do not explicitly incorpo-
rate Virgil’s insights on the lower level. The higher level presupposes
the lower one and does not replace it. Similarly, Virgil’s discourse
does not replace Francesca’s account of love, however sinful it may
be. The high level of generality in Virgil’s teaching tells us nothing
about deep love between persons. Francesca’s love may be spurious,
but at least it proves an image, albeit distorted, of intimate human
relationships. Within the poem, her false love for Paolo foreshad-
ows the true love fulfilled in Beatrice’s relationship with Dante.
In short, Dante’s lower level perspectives on “love” are not
erased or replaced by his higher ones. Even a sinfully distorted per-
spective, like Francesca’s, has its truth. Understanding on a higher
level enables us to interpret it rightly, but not to eliminate it. Char-
acteristically, the author of a meditative ascent does not rearticulate
lower level perspectives so as to fit them into a higher level. Rather,
he leaves it to the reader to fit the perspectives together into a coher-
ent whole. Virgil’s discourse, though incomplete, remains valid. It is
true, as far as it goes. But it does not explain why human beings de-
sire as they do and why things are desirable, and so it needs the per-
spectives provided by the Paradiso to be fully coherent.
Yet nowhere did Dante bring these perspectives together, and he
did not do so because he wanted to draw the reader more deeply
into the transforming work of his poem. In many different ways, he
presented “love” as central to the whole Commedia, but he never de-
veloped, in any one place, all the details of a doctrine of love. That
task he left for the fit reader. Characteristically, the meditative ascent
avoids making explicit the full range of what it would have us un-
derstand. It does not aim to develop an exposition, in the manner
of Scholastic philosophy. It aims to initiate the reader in Christian-
Platonist meditation.
This meditation has a goal: to transform the reader in ways anal-
ogous to the transformation of the pilgrim. In the course of Dante

the pilgrim’s ascent, the meanings of “love” undergo progressive
transformation, and this reflects the progressive transformation of
his soul. Every first-time reader of the poem witnesses this transfor-
mation, and to that extent participates in it. But this participation is
rarely deep, and thus hardly transforming. The transforming work
of the poem is effected to the extent that readers meditate upon it.
In this instance, as we attempt to understand what the Commedia is
saying about “love,” we dwell upon its transformations of meaning,
and this dwelling allows them to work more deeply upon us. We are
involved more deeply in the transformations effected in the poem,
and they may thereby effect a transformation in us. Dante wrote for
an audience familiar with the meditative reading of Scripture, which
was designed to transform one’s life into conformity with Christ.
Dante designed the work for the kind of meditation that medieval
Christians devoted to Scripture and the Church Fathers, to effect the
same kind of transformation.
Foreshadowing and Fulfillment

We have seen how the philosophical tradition gives us one mod-
el for interpreting the relations between levels in the meditative as-
cent, “the analogy of being.” The literary tradition offers another,
similar in certain respects, “foreshadowing and fulfillment.” Every
storyteller knows that the climax of the plot must be set up properly
beforehand. Without such preparation, the climax falls apart and
the story fails. One way to prepare for the climax is to foreshadow it:
early events or images prefigure the ending. Oedipus’s quarrel with
the blind Tiresias, for example, reveals his intellectual blindness to
his true condition and foreshadows his physical blindness in the fi-
nal scene.
Christian-Platonist writers were especially familiar with this lit-
erary technique from their typological interpretation of Scripture.
Old Testament persons and events were understood to prefigure
Foreshadowing and Fulfillment 23
those in the New Testament. Abraham, Moses, David, and Solomon

were all held to be “types of Christ”: each foreshadowed, in different
ways, Christ’s saving work in the New Testament. Thus, for example,
as Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and toward the Promised
Land, so does Jesus lead the spiritual Israel away from the Egypt of
sin to the eternal Promised Land of Heaven. Christ’s mission there-
by fulfills and surpasses Moses’ work: Jesus is “the new Moses,” en-
acting a greater exodus for all humankind. Hence, Christ’s mission
is more universal and more spiritual than Moses’: the New Testa-
ment fulfills the types of the Old Testament on a higher level. More-
over, Christ’s mission itself points to the higher reality of “future
glory,” after the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment: at
his Second Coming, Christ “will make all things new” (Rv 21:5), for
there will be “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rv 21:1). In typologi-
cal interpretation, the Bible reveals that history progresses climacti-
cally, to higher and higher levels: the Old Testament foreshadows
the New, and the New Testament prefigures “future glory.”11
In the nature of the case, a foreshadowing can only be recog-
nized retrospectively from its fulfillment. A novel or drama diversi-
fies characters and incidents, and though all these contribute to the
plot only some foreshadow the ending. We read forward, but we un-
derstand backward. The fulfillment cannot be predicted by its fore-
shadowing, for the foreshadowing can only be recognized in light of
its fulfillment. The fulfillment must be a new and surprising event,
for if the climax is predictable, the story proves a bore. As we read
forward, the plot should interest us with surprising turns. In retro-
spect, however, we should be able to see how the whole plot holds
together. In this way, later passages illuminate details in earlier ones.
We may distinguish two broad types of foreshadowing and ful-
fillment. In the first, the foreshadowing is magnified in its fulfill-
11. Thomas Aquinas summarizes the tradition in this way in Summa Theolog-
ica I, q. 1, a. 10.
ment. Odysseus’s overcoming of the Cyclops foreshadows his con-

quest of the suitors; Moses prefigures and is surpassed by Christ.
Here, foreshadowing and fulfillment are of the same kind but on
different scales. The second type of foreshadowing, however, in-
volves contrasts, because stories often turn on reversals. Odysseus,
disguised as the old broken-down beggar at the door, is revealed to
be the lord of the manor and a war hero, slaughtering the juvenile
gang that has been plundering his household. In biblical typology,
Adam prefigures Christ, though they are opposites: the disobedient
first man of the flesh is redeemed by the obedient first man of the
spirit (Rom 5: 12–19). In other words, foreshadowing and fulfill-
ment may oppose one another as contrasting types. Fulfillment
through reversal, present in many stories, proves particularly impor-
tant in Christianity, whose crucified prophet is revealed as the Lord
of Glory. Indeed, Jesus often spoke of eschatological fulfillment as a
reversal of this-worldly priorities: the last shall be first, the humble
shall be exalted.
Two examples may illustrate these familiar principles. We have
already examined one instance of foreshadowing and fulfillment at
a higher level in the beginning and end of the Commedia. Its first
verb, mi ritrovai, indicates the pilgrim’s suddenly renewed self-recog-
nition: “In the middle of the way of our life, I found myself again”
(Inf. 1.1–2). He had lost himself, but then he returned to him-
self. The final canto of the Paradiso climaxes with the highest self-
recognition possible, the pilgrim’s vision of Christ “face to face” (1
Cor 13:12). Here is a self-recognition both creational and eschato-
logical: Christ is Dante’s divine Origin and End, and in the risen
Christ he sees his vocation to glory, what he is called to become. The
first verb of the poem thus foreshadows its final vision. Indeed, mi
ritrovai foreshadows the whole journey, for Dante is like the prodi-
gal son, who “returned into himself” (Luke 15:17; Vulgate, In se
autem reversus), and so consequently returned to his Father. The
Christian-Platonist tradition interpreted the parable of the prodigal
son in relation to the meditative ascent: the son makes the inward
turn and then rises in returning to his Father, God.
The second example turns on contrasts. In Augustine’s autobiog-
raphy there are two, and only two, fruit trees: a pear tree in Book 2
and a fig tree in Book 8. The two trees clue us to an elaborate set of
oppositions between the two books.12 Book 2, chapter 4, narrates
the adolescent Augustine’s theft of the pears, at night, with a gang of
friends, for the sheer pleasure of stealing. In the following chapters,
the bishop meditates on the perversity of his sin, and finally realizes
that he did it to please his friends (2.9.17). Book 8, in contrast, tells
the story of his conversion, which is prepared by stories of conver-
sion told to the young Augustine by two friends. It occurred during
the day in a garden, after weeping in repentance under a fig tree. In
this example, foreshadowing prefigures fulfillment through reversal.
The perversion of sin, at night, through the bad influence of friends
“according to the flesh,” is countered by conversion to Christ, in the
light of day, through the good influence of friends “according to the
spirit.”
Fulfillment through reversal is particularly vital to the Christian-
Platonist ascent because the ascent often integrates sinful, or erro-
neous, perspectives so as to correct them. As a perversion of the good,
sin appears to be absurd: a distortion so fundamental as to mock
goodness and make it unrecognizable. This perspective is true, as far
as it goes, on its own level. But a perversion of the good is, necessari-
ly, a perversion of the good: as the meditative ascent achieves a high-
er level, it reveals the goodness being perverted at the lower level.
This recognition is achieved through retrospective contrast: Augus-
tine’s Christian conversion in Book 8 enables a new understanding
of his sinful perversion in Book 2.
Similarly, in the Commedia, the erotic passion between Paolo
12. See Leo C. Ferrari, “The Arboreal Polarization in Augustine’s Confessions,”

Revue des Etudes Augustiniennes 25 (1979): 35–46.
and Francesca, figured in the whirlwind that torments them, fore-

shadows Beatrice’s divine eros for Dante, which raises him to the vi-
sion of God. In general, images of perversion in Hell are riddling re-
flections of Christian truths. The whirlwind, an image of sexual
passion in Inferno 5, symbolizes God’s love for human beings in
Scripture. In the Vulgate, a whirlwind (turbo) clears the Israelites’
path through the Red Sea (Ex 14:21), raises the prophet Elijah into
heaven (2 Kgs 2:1, 11), and resounds at the Pentecost (Acts 2:2) be-
fore the tongues of flame appear over the apostles’ heads. It is the
wind of the Holy Spirit (spiritus, “breath, wind”) acting to save hu-
man beings. Thus, in the Commedia the distortions of sexual passion
reveal, as though “through a glass, darkly” (1 Cor 13:12), God’s pas-
sionate love for human beings, for the divine Love is the ground
and goal of all human desire. When the Christian-Platonist ascent
represents vices on lower levels, as in the Confessions and the Com-
media, it also provides the higher levels whose perspectives enable
us to reinterpret the vices correctively, or redemptively.
Now it would appear that the models of foreshadowing and
analogy work with different materials. Foreshadowing and fulfill-
ment seem appropriate for “literary” events and images, while the
ladder of analogies illuminates the “philosophical” use of key
terms. These distinctions remain useful as long as they do not be-
come separations. For the meditative ascent is simultaneously liter-
ary and philosophical, and we neglect this at our peril. “Literary”
surprises, even reversals, often affect “philosophical” passages.
Two examples may illustrate this. Book 13, chapter 11 of the
Confessions begins “Who can understand the omnipotent Trinity?”
(13.11.12). Augustine inquires about the Trinity in the third person.
He goes on to correlate the three Persons with being (Father), know-
ing (Son), and willing (Holy Spirit). He recognizes that being,
knowing, and willing are inseparable and yet distinct, and so they
offer a model for understanding the Trinity. But he cannot say
“whether these three constitute the Trinity, or whether all three are
present in each Person,” or whether both are true in some mysteri-

ous way. He is baffled, and he concludes the chapter by asking,
“Who would venture in any way to make a rash pronouncement on
the subject?”
Yet five chapters later he does make a rash pronouncement on
this subject: “Your being knows and wills immutably, your knowl-
edge is and wills immutably, and your will is and knows im-
mutably” (13.16.19). The hesitations and perplexities animating
chapter 11 have vanished. He is no longer inquiring about the Trini-
ty, in the third person, but telling the Trinitarian God about Him-
self. He asserts, briefly and unambiguously, that each Person of the
Trinity exercises all three functions. Between these two chapters,
something has happened to Augustine. We are meant to understand
that a sudden influx of grace has illumined him, transforming his
hesitant questions into sure assertions. Within the space of five
chapters, and on a profound mystery of faith, the “philosophical”
inquiry has registered a “literary” reversal.
Foreshadowing also helps us understand the meditative ascent
in Anselm’s Proslogion, supposedly a “philosophical” work without
“literary” events. In chapter 2, Anselm begins his famous argument
by calling God “that than which nothing greater can be thought”
(S 101).13 In chapter 15, however, he affirms that God is “greater
than can be thought” (S 112). From regarding God as the limit of
13. All quotations from the Proslogion are taken from the Latin edition by F.
S. Schmitt, as reprinted in Gregory Schufreider, Confessions of a Rational Mystic:
Anselm’s Early Writings (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1994).
Schufreider has reproduced Schmitt’s later edition of the Proslogion (Stuttgart
[Bad Cannstatt]: Friedrich Frommann Verlag, 1962), rather than his earlier one
in the Opera Omnia, 6 vols., edited by Franciscus Salesius Schmitt, O.S.B. (Edin-
burgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1938–1961)—the Proslogion is in Volume 1.
The former is printed, not in block form, as prose, but “poetically,” with line
breaks and staggered indentations that emphasize the rhythm and musicality of
Anselm’s language. The editions are very close; I will comment on one minor
change, in Chapter 3. The parenthetical “S” references are to the text in the Opera
Omnia, as is common in Anselm scholarship. The English translations are mine,
thought, the meditation has advanced to a higher understanding of

God as beyond the limit of thought. The “definition” in chapter 2,
adequate on its own level, now appears retrospectively to foreshad-
ow the affirmation in chapter 15. Then, in the final chapter (26),
Anselm declares God to be “joy beyond measure” (S 121) as he med-
itates rapturously on the “full joy” of the beatific vision (S 120–22).
By this point, the meditation has progressed from “thought” to
“fullness of joy” (26), from intellectual reflection about God to a
foretaste of full divine experience. Retrospectively, then, the God of
joy beyond all fullness of our experience, in chapter 26, surpasses
the God beyond thought, in chapter 15, which foreshadows it.
Though the Proslogion presents itself as a philosophical and theolog-
ical exploration, its progress to higher and higher levels involves “lit-
erary” surprise: the final experience of God as immeasurable joy
could not be foreseen on the basis of “that than which nothing
greater can be thought.”
From this vantage point, we can consider some of the formal
similarities between a philosophical ladder of analogy and literary
foreshadowing and fulfillment. In both, later and “higher” passages
clarify details in earlier and “lower” ones. The story of Augustine’s
conversion in Book 8 serves to highlight, by contrast, many details
in Book 2. Moreover, interpreting their relations makes both books
far more meaningful than each is separately. Yet, as in Dante’s dis-
courses on love, the task of perceiving relations and exploring their
meanings is left to the reader. The Confessions provides the clues to
show us the way to deeper understandings, but it does not develop
them explicitly. Furthermore, in both analogy and foreshadowing,
the forward and upward movement is full of surprises: only in retro-
spect can the relations be noted and explored. The pear theft in
Book 2 may foreshadow, but does not predict, the conversion in
though I have profited from consulting those by Schufreider, Deane, and

Charlesworth.
The Meditative Ascent and Philosophical Content 29
Book 8. Without the book titles and chapter headings provided in

modern translations, no reader of Book 10 on memory could fore-
tell that “time” would follow in Book 11.
The Meditative Ascent and Philosophical Content

The Christian-Platonist ascent thus fuses literary and philosophi-
cal forms. These may be distinguished, but they cannot be separated.
Hence, a certain difficulty emerges about the philosophical content
of the ascent. (Although the “philosophical” and the “theological”
may be distinguished in these works, they cannot be separated, and I
use the word “philosophical” as a shorthand for both.) Most con-
temporary philosophy argues for “positions”: one is said to “hold” a
philosophical position and to “defend it.” Similarly, Catholic phi-
losophy, with its heritage of Scholasticism, has understood itself to
be “doctrinal,” to teach truths as “securely established” as possible.
Indeed, these are ancient understandings: Plato’s Socrates insists that
philosophical argument “ties down” true opinions and thereby con-
firms them.14 The language of “positions” and “doctrines” clearly
implies fixity. If philosophical content implies “holding” positions
or doctrines, how does the movement implied in an ascent affect this
positional content? Moreover, what is the philosophical character of
a meditative ascent as a whole?
For these medieval authors, a meditative ascent does not intend
primarily to “teach doctrines” or “establish positions.” The content
of a discursive level should be understood less as a “position” to be
“held” than as “a station along the way.” As a station along the way,
its discourse is like a position, but as a station along the way, it proves
but a temporary platform: a true understanding, but not a final
one.15 Every discursive level proves “true as far as it goes,” but it is
presented only to be surpassed. To be sure, a discursive level is doc-
14. See the Meno 97d–98b.

15. I adapt the idea of a “platform of understanding” from Michael
Oakeshott, On Human Conduct (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 8–12.
trinal, insofar as it teaches us something, but the doctrine is never fi-

nal, because the ascent moves on. It proves less “a doctrine,” or “a
position,” than “an elucidation.” On a given theme, it may prove the
last explicit word in the ascent and, in that sense, be regarded as final.
Nevertheless, ultimately there is no “final position” in a meditative
ascent, except God, and the infinite Life is not a “position” in any
sense of the term. Rather, the ascent culminates in an apprehension
of its Ground, and this clarifies earlier levels, if we meditate retro-
spectively on them. Hence, the last explicit word on any important
theme is rarely the final word offered by an ascent, because its high-
est level implicitly reconfigures its earlier understandings. The final
word must be construed by the reader’s meditation.
We have already seen such a pattern of reconfigured understand-
ings at work in Dante’s treatment of “love.” Adulterous “love” in In-
ferno 5 may be Dante’s first extended account of love in the Comme-
dia, but it is hardly his last: it will be explicitly reconfigured in
Purgatorio 17–18 and then again in many parts of the Paradiso. At
the same time, though Dante’s later and higher treatments of “love”
illuminate understandings reached on lower levels of the ascent,
these higher understandings do not erase the validity of lower ones.
No single passage in the Commedia draws together all that Dante has
to say about “love.” Whatever teaching about love his poem con-
tains must be construed by the reader’s meditation.
Such an implied reconfigured understanding may also be seen
in the theme of friendship in the Confessions. Books 1–9 contain
many representations of friendship, with some explicit remarks
about the character of true friendship in Book 4. After Augustine
turns to explore memory and Genesis 1 in Books 10–13, he does
not mention friends or reflect on friendship again. Nevertheless,
though the key word is absent, the theme is implied in the allegory
of the Church in Book 13. As Chapter 3 will show, Augustine’s treat-
ment of friendship in Books 1–9 implies the Church as the fulfill-
ment of friendship, and his fullest exposition of the Church in the
Confessions comes in Book 13. This exposition implicitly reconfig-

ures the earlier understandings of friendship not by altering them,
but by setting them in a new context. Indeed, because this exposi-
tion stands at the summit of the ascent, it represents the fulfillment
of every important theme in the work. Augustine did not elaborate
these understandings: he left them implied by the structure of the
work. In a meditative ascent, everything that rises must converge,
though the convergence is rarely made explicit. Augustine left the
convergence of friendship, in Books 1–9, and the Church, in Book
13, to be construed by his readers. The meditative ascent demands
the reader’s meditation in order to be fully understood.
In this way, the philosophical character of the Christian-Platon-
ist ascent as a whole is not doctrinal, but meditative, and this occurs
in three ways. First, to understand what the work presents on any
significant theme demands meditation, for the ascent rarely conveys
its full understanding of an issue in any single place. A treatment on
one level needs to be correlated with other levels and understood in
light of the ascent as a whole. What Dante had to say about “love”
in the Commedia, and Augustine about friendship in the Confessions,
are not explicitly stated in any one place. The genre is designed to
provoke retrospective rereading.
Second, every ascent aims to initiate its readers into certain prac-
tices of Christian-Platonist meditation. These differ somewhat in
different works, and even in different parts of the same work. Books
1–10 of the Confessions, for example, initiate us into the practices of
Christian self-scrutiny, while Books 11–13 teach us how to meditate,
prayerfully and philosophically, on Scripture. Anselm’s Proslogion of-
fers another example of theological reflection in and as prayer,
while Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy initiates readers into a dia-
logue with Stoic and Platonist philosophy. Nevertheless, every
Christian-Platonist ascent turns its readers away from things outside
(extra se) to things within (intra se) and shows them how to make
the return journey to things above (supra se). The meditative ascent
demands more than mere reading. It is constructed so as to lead us

to meditate, if we would understand it fully: to reread, reflect, and
explore the relations between its parts. This is how it schools us in
its practices. Its final word to us is “Go and do likewise.”
Third, the meditative ascent thereby proves a spiritual exercise,
in two different ways. In one way, its explicit meditative exercises be-
come ours as we read. We follow its journey in quest of truth, its
search for God. In order to read it at the literal level, we necessarily
ask its questions, explore the answers it explores, pray its prayers,
and so on. Merely by reading it we begin to assimilate the forms of
meditation it would teach.
In another way, the work invites us to the further spiritual exer-
cise of understanding its structure and what it implies. This medita-
tion is designed to deepen our involvement with the work and our
understanding of ourselves. We are led to dwell upon the ascent
more deeply as we spend more time exploring its designs. By
dwelling in the world of the work, we involve ourselves in its vision
of truth and thereby appropriate it. At the same time, because the
understandings we seek are implied, what we discover proves more
questionable. We wind up asking ourselves not only “Did Dante
think this?,” but also “Is this true? Do I think this?” In other words,
the spiritual exercise of meditating on the ascent leads us more
deeply into ourselves, as well as into the work. By questioning its vi-
sion of truth meditatively, we become more aware of our own.
Whether, in the end, we agree or disagree with it on an issue does
not matter. It has engaged us in a spiritual exercise and thereby suc-
ceeds in its intention: to further our knowledge of God and of our-
selves.
Recent scholarship, especially the work of Pierre Hadot, has re-
covered the role of spiritual exercises in all the schools of ancient
philosophy.16 These exercises use meditation, in various forms, to
16. For a brief treatment, see “Spiritual Exercises” in Hadot’s collection, Phi-
transform a person’s consciousness by dwelling interiorly on a

school’s fundamental teachings. For similar reasons, Christians
meditated on the Bible, and their practices have also been recovered
by scholars. Lectio divina, the prayerful study of Scripture, involved
dwelling on a text so as to assimilate its truth. Though the name is
associated with the Benedictine tradition, its roots lie in Jewish prac-
tices that were adapted very early by Christians.17 The Fathers of the
Church practiced lectio divina in fact, if not in name. Hence, when
Augustine, Boethius, and Anselm wrote their works as spiritual exer-
cises, they were writing for audiences who knew how to use them.
Their readers knew how to explore relations between passages of
Scripture and how to dwell meditatively upon them. The present
study uses this recovered knowledge in order to show how to ex-
plore these works as fully as they were meant to be read.
As in lectio divina, the ultimate aim of these spiritual exercises is
contemplative: to lead us to a deeper apprehension of God. God is
not only the End of the ascent but also its Origin, and therefore its
Mover, Guide, and Path. The ascent aims to lead us through words
to the Word, through words about God toward the wordless experi-
ence of God. Because God is present throughout the ascent, at any
losophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, edited with an
Introduction by Arnold I. Davidson, translated by Michael Chase (Oxford: Black-
well, 1995), pp. 81–125. A fuller discussion may be found in Pierre Hadot, What
Is Ancient Philosophy?, translated by Michael Chase (Cambridge, Mass.: Belnap
Press of Harvard University Press, 2002).
17. For fundamental texts and practices, see Mariano Magrassi, Praying the
Bible: An Introduction to “Lectio Divina,” translated by Edward Hagman, O.F.M.
Cap. (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1990), a florilegium of monastic texts
with commentary; and Enzo Bianchi, Praying the Word: An Introduction to “Lectio
Divina,” translated by James W. Zona, Cistercian Studies Series, no. 182 (Kalama-
zoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1998), which contains the famous letter of
Guigo the Carthusian on the four stages of lectio divina, pp. 100–114. For a brief
treatment, see Jean Leclecq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of
Monastic Culture, translated by Catherine Misrahi (New York: Fordham Universi-
ty Press, 1961), pp. 15–21.
point a reader may be sparked by grace into awareness of the Divine

Presence. But the normal means to this awareness will come
through meditating on larger patterns and meanings in the work. In
the Commedia, for example, every form of “love” is ultimately
grounded in “the Love that moves the sun and the other stars” (Par.
33.145). When we meditate on the relations between a lower love
and the highest Love, our minds are induced to jump the gap be-
tween them. The spark ignites, the light goes on, we “get it”—at least
sometimes. By orchestrating relations between levels, and inducing
us to meditate on them, the ascent aims to quicken our awareness
of the Divine Presence as always present. A meditative philosophy
aims not only at intellectual insight, but also at ongoing personal
transformation, and nothing effects this so deeply as the sense of
God’s presence.
Numerological Structure
Scholars have long explored the ways in which literary and artis-
tic works in the Christian-Platonist tradition use significant nu-
merological patterns. Dante’s Commedia is perhaps the best known
instance, with its perfect number of cantos (100, or 10 3 10) and its
many forms of “three” in imitation of the Trinity: three major parts
of the poem, three guides for the pilgrim, written in terza rima, and
so on.18 Recent studies have shown that Dante’s use of number sym-
bolism proves far richer than we hitherto suspected, extending to ra-
18. See Vincent Foster Hopper, Medieval Number Symbolism: Its Sources, Mean-
ing, and Influence on Thought and Expression, Columbia University Studies in En-
glish and Comparative Literature, no. 112 (New York: Columbia University Press,
1938), for the tradition in general and pp. 136–201 on Dante. Emile Male, The
Gothic Image: Religious Art in France in the Thirteenth Century, translated by Dora
Nussey (New York: Harper & Row, 1972; original publication by Dutton, 1913),
pp. 9–14, writes of number symbolism as a fundamental characteristic of me-
dieval art. For recent work in numerological analysis, see the essays in Caroline D.
Eckhardt, ed., Essays in the Numerical Criticism of Medieval Literature (Lewisburg,
Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1980), and her Bibliographical Note, pp. 231–32.
Numerological Structure 35
diating patterns of “seven” from the center of the central canto in

the Purgatorio and even to using certain key words a numerological-
ly significant number of times.19 Dante’s practice of numerology was
part of a long tradition, both classical and Christian, that continued
for centuries after him.20
The principles underlying this tradition are well known. Pythag-
oras thought that number was a fundamental ordering principle in
the cosmos, and the Platonist tradition honored mathematical stud-
ies for this reason, among others. Plato’s Timaeus presents the “like-
ly story” of the cosmos being fashioned according to ordered num-
bers by a divine Demiurge, or artisan. These are the Pythagorean
numbers for the ratios of the musical octave, creating the planetary
order that came to be known as “the music of the spheres.”21 In the
biblical Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, God is said to have “or-
19. For the radiating pattern of “sevens,” see Charles S. Singleton, “The
Poet’s Number at the Center,” in Eckhardt, ed., Essays in the Numerical Criticism of
Medieval Literature, pp. 79–90. Manfred Hardt, Die Zahl in der “Divina Commedia”
(Frankfurt am Main: Atheneum Verlag, 1973), offers a broader study of numero-
logical symbolism in the poem.
20. See Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages,
translated by Willard R. Trask, Bollingen Series 36 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1973), pp. 501–9, on “Numerical Composition.” Robert M.
Durling and Ronald L. Martinez, in their Time and the Crystal: Studies in Dante’s
“Rime Petrose” (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990),
brilliantly draw on this tradition and others to illuminate some of Dante’s lyric
poems.
21. For the numerical ratios in the fashioning of the cosmos, see Timaeus
35b–36b; for the harmonious sound of the planetary movements, see Republic
617b–c. Macrobius’s Commentary on the Dream of Scipio 2.1–4 was an important
source for the Middle Ages on the harmony of the heavenly spheres; see the
translation by William Harris Stahl, Number 48 in the Records of Civilization,
Sources and Studies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952). Chalcidius’s
translation of and commentary on the Timaeus (up to 53b) communicated the
Platonist cosmological tradition directly to the Middle Ages. See Plato, Plato Lati-
nus. Volumen IV. Timaeus a Calcidio translatus commentarioque instructus, edited by
J. H. Waszink (London: Warburg Institute, 1962). For the Platonic tradition in
the Middle Ages, see Raymond Klibansky, The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition
dered [disposuisti] all things in measure and number and weight”

(11:21). Writers and artists, classical and Christian, often sought to
model their work on the work of the best Maker. The divine Being
used numbers to impart a beautiful order (cosmos) to the universe,
and writers employed numerical principles and numerological sym-
bolism in imitation of him. The literary microcosm was modeled
on the macrocosm.
The following chapters will analyze the numerological struc-
tures of the Confessions, the Proslogion, and the Consolation of Philoso-
phy. In the works we are studying, numerological structures are nev-
er ironic, never at odds with the explicit statements of a work. They
are always in accord with what a work says and with the tradition to
which it appeals. They harmonize with the work’s literary structure,
as determined by its division into books and chapters. As one might
expect, the significant numbers in the Confessions and the Proslogion
are Trinitarian, while those in the Consolation are Platonist and cos-
mological. At the same time, all three works employ chiastic pat-
terns in their numerological structures, and it would be well to ex-
plore here the significant meanings implied by the chiasm. This, in
turn, will enable me to address the philosophical significance of nu-
merological structures. Because these implied patterns add nothing
to the work’s explicit statements, it may be objected that they are
merely literary and without philosophical import. Because I have
been insisting that these works are literary and philosophical
wholes, this objection must be addressed.
A chiasm is a rhetorical pattern, a cross structure, and it may be
rendered as A B B A. As a rhetorical scheme in a sentence, it can be
contrasted with isocolon, or parallelism: A B A B. “Many are called,
but few are chosen” is a parallelism, while “The last shall be first,
and the first shall be last” is a chiasm. The word chiasm derives from
during the Middle Ages: With a New Preface and Four Supplementary Chapters; To-
gether with Plato’s “Parmenides” in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: With a New In-
troductory Preface (Milwood, N.Y.: Kraus International Publications, 1982).
the Greek letter chi or X, for it names a crossing pattern, which may
be graphed by contrast with parallelism in the following way:
chiasm parallelism
AB AB
BA AB
A chiastic pattern can also occur in a structure longer than the

sentence, and then it is known as an inclusio, or a ring structure. The
ring is formed because its first element is echoed in the last, its sec-
ond element in the second to last, and so on. Often the ring struc-
ture has a central part, and it receives a certain emphasis by not be-
ing echoed. The simplest form of this structure may be rendered as
A B C B A. The prologue in the Gospel of John (1:1–18) provides a
useful illustration:
A 1:1–5 The Word with God “in the beginning”

B 1:6–9 John the Baptist’s witness
C 1:9–11 The true light enters the world and is rejected by it
D 1:12–13 But those who accept him are born of God
C´ 1:14 The Word became flesh, and we have seen his glory
B´ 1:15–17 John the Baptist’s witness, confirmed by the evangelist
A´ 1:18 God’s only Son abides in the bosom of the Father 22
The Word who was with God in the beginning (A) has returned to
abide with God in the end (A´). John the Baptist’s witness (B and
B´) frames Christ’s descent into the world and its rejection of him
(C), the positive results of accepting him (D), and his manifestation
in the world as flesh and glory (C´). As a whole, the Prologue enacts
the movement of the Word’s descent from and return to the Father.
Its ring structure imitates the “circular” movement it describes.
22. This pattern is taken from Bruno Barnhart, The Good Wine: Reading John
from the Center (New York: Paulist Press, 1993), pp. 47–51. Barnhart argues that
the Gospel of John as a whole is structured chiastically, and he explores the inter-
pretive consequences of this insight.
In sum, then, although the chiastic structure of a work unfolds

linearly, it proves both a cross and a circle. This pattern has obvious
Christian meanings. Chi is the first letter in the Greek word for
“Christ” and a common sign for Christ. As a cross, it signifies the in-
strument of our salvation. As a circle, or ring structure, it imitates
Christ’s descent from and return to Heaven. It also mimes the cos-
mic pattern of procession (exitus) and return (reditus), inaugurated
by the Word’s creation of the world and fulfilled by his Resurrection
and Ascension. Christ’s descent and return proves the archetype for
our return to God, even as it effects our redemption. Christ is the
crossing point where eternity intersects with time in the Incarna-
tion, when God meets humanity in the fullest way. As cross, circle,
and sign of Christ, a chiastic structure symbolizes the central myster-
ies of the Christian faith.
Because Christianity continues in the modern world, these sym-
bolic meanings need only be mentioned in order to be understood.
But for all the thinkers in the present study, a chiastic structure also
had significance in relation to the geocentric cosmos, and this needs
to be recovered. In Plato’s Timaeus (36b–c), the Demiurge fashioned
the heavenly movements by taking the world soul, dividing it into
two circles or motions, and joining them in a chi pattern. These two
are called the Motion of the Same and the Motion of the Different.
In this way, the cosmic movements of the stars manifest the numer-
ical order and harmony of the world soul. A chiastic structure in a
literary work evokes the divine ordering of the cosmos.
A brief excursus on the ancient cosmology will make this intelli-
gible.23 In the Ptolemaic cosmos, the Earth stands unmoving at the
center and the stars move about it, each in their own spheres. There
are seven planets, or “wandering stars” (Greek planetos, “wanderer”),
in seven concentric spheres outward from the Earth: the Moon, Mer-
23. A good brief treatment of medieval astronomy can be found in Patrick

Boyde, Dante Philomythes and Philosopher: Man in the Cosmos (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1981), pp. 132–60.
cury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Beyond Saturn, in
the seventh sphere, are the “fixed stars” in the eighth sphere, and the
primum mobile, “the first mover,” in the ninth and outermost sphere.
The “fixed stars” are the constellations and what we call stars today,
because they are fixed in their relations to one another: the Big Dip-
per always looks like the Big Dipper, even though it turns in the sky
around the pole. The ninth sphere, the primum mobile, has no stars:
it moves in a constant and unvarying motion, and it sweeps all the
lower spheres with it. This is the Motion of the Same, moving at a
constant speed from east to west along the celestial equator, which
is our equator projected into space. (We believe that this occurs be-
cause the Earth rotates on its axis at an even pace, once every 24
hours.) Each of the seven planets also has its own “proper motion,”
one unique to it, along the celestial ecliptic and (roughly) through
the Zodiac. (We believe that this change occurs because the planets
revolve around the Sun at different speeds at different distances, and
we observe them by way of the Earth’s movement relative to them.)
This is the Motion of the Different, in seven different versions,
whose intervals reflect the Pythagorean ratios of the octave (Timaeus
35a–36b). The celestial ecliptic is a projection into space of the
earthly ecliptic, a circle running from the Tropic of Capricorn, in the
southern hemisphere, across the equator, to the Tropic of Cancer, in
the northern. Because the Motion of the Same runs along the celes-
tial equator, the crossing of ecliptic and equator forms the chi, or X-
pattern, of the cosmic movements.
The Sun is the most important star and its movements manifest
most clearly the Motions of the Same and the Different of the world
soul. Its daily movement, rising in the east and setting in the west,
clearly shows the Motion of the Same, and its apparent annual
movement along the ecliptic reveals the Motion of the Different. For
the Sun rises directly above the Tropic of Capricorn at the winter
solstice (December 21), and so that day proves the shortest day of
the year in the northern hemisphere: the Sun moves from east to
west in a small arc in the southern part of the sky. Conversely, the
Sun rises above the Tropic of Cancer at the summer solstice (June
21), the longest day of the year, because the Sun moves from east to
west in its longest and highest arc in our sky. When the Sun rises
over the equator, we have the equinoxes of spring (March 21) and
autumn (September 21). In other words, the annual movement of
the Sun along the ecliptic governs the seasons. Just as its diurnal
movements, in the Motion of the Same, regulate the hours of day
and night, so does its annual motion, in the Motion of the Differ-
ent, regulate the seasonal rhythm of the year. This is why the Sun
has been associated with rule and kingship all over the world, not to
speak of divinity.
For a Platonist who was not a Christian, these scientific observa-
tions have spiritual and moral meanings. They reveal the divine and
beautiful order of the cosmos as a heavenly harmony—the music of
the spheres, the dance of the stars.24 According to the Timaeus, hu-
man beings were made erect so that we could contemplate this cos-
mic order, whose movements manifest the world soul. Because we
have sight and can look upward, we observe the Sun and the stars,
and this gives us an understanding of number and time and the
power of inquiring about the nature of the universe. This contem-
plative inquiry is philosophy. It enables us to attune the various,
and often chaotic, movements in our own souls according to the in-
telligence manifested in the order of the heavens (46e–47e). Hence,
a chiastic pattern in a Platonist work evokes a rich array of meanings
concerning the world soul, the cosmic order, the nature and voca-
tion of human beings, and the philosophical life.
This understanding of the cosmos was taken over by Christian
Platonists, with the exception of the heretical idea of the world soul.
In fact, from an early period Christians associated the chi of the cos-
24. The ancient tradition on the dance of the heavens is extensive studied in
James L. Miller, Measures of Wisdom: The Cosmic Dance in Classical and Christian
Antiquity (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986).
mos with its creation by Christ. All things were created by the Word
(Jn 1:2), and Christ, as it were, initialed his work with the instru-
ment of salvation, the cross. In this way, “The heavens declare the
glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handiwork” (Ps 19:1).
John Freccero briefly reviews this tradition to comment on the
opening of Paradiso 10: it was widely diffused in the patristic era and
continued into the medieval period in Abelard, as well as Dante.25
Like Dante, Augustine, Anselm, and Boethius lived in this Ptolemaic
universe and were familiar with the Timaeus tradition, which was a
cultural commonplace. Boethius, writing the Consolation as a philos-
opher rather than as a Christian, referred to it at many points, most
famously in III, m. 9, “O qui perpetua mundum ratione gubernas” (“O
you who govern the world with perpetual reason”). The chiastic
structures in their works, then, evoke Platonist and cosmological
meanings, as well as Christian and biblical ones. Because we must
labor to recover the former, this distinction seems more important
to us than it would have to them. The Christian intellectual tradi-
tion had already harmonized the two.
In sum, then, the chiastic structure in these works proves both a
circle and a cross, even as it enacts the meditative ascent. As a circle,
it symbolizes procession and return, creation and salvation, and the
circular movements of the heavenly spheres. These, in turn, evoke
the still circle of divinity, for the circle is an ancient image of perfec-
tion, eternity, stability, and wholeness. As a cross, it symbolizes
Christ, the instrument of our salvation, and the cosmic chi where
25. See John Freccero, Dante: Poetics of Conversion, edited with an Introduc-
tion by Rachel Jacoff (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), pp.
239–41; he cites Wilhelm Bousset, “Platons Weltseele und das Kreuz Christi,”
Zeitschrift fur die Neutestamentliche Wisenschaft 14 (1913): 273, on p. 313, n. 50.
Chauncey Wood notes that this tradition is relevant to Chaucer, in Chaucer and
the Country of the Stars: Poetic Uses of Astrological Imagery (Princeton, N.J.: Prince-
ton University Press, 1970), p. 286n. I have shown its importance for a poem by
George Herbert, in “Herbert’s ‘Coloss. 3.3’ as Microcosm,” George Herbert Journal
15, no. 2 (1992): 55–69.
the Motion of the Same intersects the Motion of the Different in the
world soul. As an ascent, it fulfills the human vocation as under-
stood by Christianity, imitating Christ’s return to the Father, and by
Platonist philosophy as the return to the One. These ideas are so
fundamental in Christian Platonism that their full development
would extend throughout all aspects of its beliefs. As themes for
meditation, they are inexhaustible.
Herein lies the philosophical significance of an implied chiastic
structure: it resonates with every explicit theme in a Christian-
Platonist ascent, and thereby helps to effect personal transformation
in a meditative reader. For an analytic or Scholastic philosophy,
meditative resonance seems unimportant. The goal here is the artic-
ulation of truth, substantiated and defended by explicit argument.
Analytic philosophers craft their works with care, but they devote
this care to the logic of their arguments, not to devising numerologi-
cally significant deep structures. For a meditative philosophy, how-
ever, the goal is personal transformation, and explicit argument
proves but one means toward it. A good argument, valuable though
it is, does not normally affect the whole soul, the deeper levels of the
person. In order to affect us deeply, an argument must not only be
acknowledged as true but meditated on—studied, pondered, re-
viewed, assimilated. Its relations with the rest of the meditative
ascent must be explored. As the work’s numerological structure be-
comes clear, it, too, generate themes for meditation. A numerologi-
cal chiasm reveals the beauty of the work, its order and harmony, in
a new way. This beauty enchants the meditative reader and deepens
participation in the work. Deeper participation enables a more pro-
found transformation: as the reader enters more deeply into the per-
spectives of the work, the work enters more deeply into him.
Above all, a chiastic deep structure has so many resonances in
Christian Platonism that it works simultaneously to unify and rami-
fy the meaning of a text. Everything in the ascent is related to the cir-
cle and the cross, and in manifold ways. Each theme in the work is
related to this deep structure, and hence thereby related to every
other theme. This network of relations is not worked out explicitly:

the writer left that task to the reader’s meditation. In other words, a
meditative reader could connect any chapter to the symbolism of
circle, cross, or ascent, and thereby explore its relations with any
other chapter. In this way, possible meanings ramify beyond the
work’s explicit statements. At the same time, they are unified by the
deep structure of Christian-Platonist symbols.
As is well known, the Church Fathers meditated on the Bible in
this way, often relating different passages through a central mystery
of the faith. Augustine, for example, begins his allegory on Genesis
in the Confessions by relating creation and conversion. As the primal
chaos heard and heeded God’s forming word, “Let there be light,”
so does a convert to the Word receive “the form of doctrine,” for
“[God’s] mercy did not abandon our misery” (13.12.13) but, rather,
saved human beings. Augustine’s formulation correlates creation,
conversion, grace, and salvation. God’s “mercy” coming to save us
from “our own misery” also describes the Exodus, the calling of the
Patriarchs and the Prophets, and the signal events of the New Testa-
ment: Incarnation, Redemption, Pentecost, and the “eternal sab-
bath” (Conf. 13.35–38) in the final chapters of the Book of Revela-
tion. God’s mercy saving us from our misery becomes the leitmotif
of his whole allegory on Genesis 1 as “the creation of the Church”
(13.34.49). His allegory alludes to all these meanings in Scripture,
because the Church embodies and carries them forward. Yet they
are one meaning, and though it can be expressed in many ways, it is
inexhaustible.26
The writers studied in this book meditated on the great works in
their tradition in this way, and they wrote their masterpieces to be
read in this way. They believed that God structured the cosmos and
his revelation in the Bible with significant numbers, and they imi-
tated Him in the numerological structures of their works. We have
26. Hans Urs von Balthasar describes this way of meditating on the Bible in
Christian Meditation, translated by Sister Mary Theresilde Skerry (San Francisco,
Calif.: Ignatius Press, 1984), esp. pp. 21–26.
long treated the Confessions, the Proslogion, and the Consolation of

Philosophy as intellectually rich and powerful. As works of meditative
philosophy, they are also inexhaustible.
The Pilgrim Figure

As a journey to the Divine Presence, the Christian-Platonist as-
cent proves a kind of religious pilgrimage. The Confessions, Proslo-
gion, Consolation of Philosophy, and Commedia each contain at least
one pilgrim figure: he makes the meditative journey within the
work, and the reader is thereby involved in it. We are seized by the
plight of Boethius the prisoner or Dante the pilgrim; we sympathize
with the anguish of being in prison or passing a long spiritual night
in the dark wood. We identify with these figures and are thereby led,
emotionally as well as intellectually, to make the journey with
them. For we too seek the light that will liberate us from darkness.
All this is obvious enough, and fundamental to these works. But
certain aspects of the pilgrim figure prove far from obvious, and we
must make some careful literary distinctions to remove ambiguities.
The issues are by no means “merely literary”: they have philosophi-
cal consequences. Since philosophers and theologians tend to be
unfamiliar with them, I will proceed slowly and begin with the
Commedia, where the issues are clearest.
Dante’s poem presents itself as autobiographical, and so schol-
ars distinguish two Dantes in it: the pilgrim making the journey and
the poet who has completed it and now retells it.27 Dante the pil-
grim does not know what will happen next: he asks questions of his
guides throughout the poem, and early on his doubts and fears are
so strong that he even considers abandoning the journey. Dante the
poet, on the other hand, always knows what will happen next, be-
cause he has completed the journey. Dante the poet recalls, in the
27. Charles S. Singleton first argued this distinction in Dante Studies 1: “Com-
media”: Elements of Structure (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954).
It has since become fundamental to our understanding of the poem.
The Pilgrim Figure 45
present, a journey he made in the past, as Dante the pilgrim. Hence,

in the unfolding of the Commedia, Dante the pilgrim and Dante
the poet are dialectically related: the pilgrim is on his way in the
journey to become the poet who is telling about it. Early on, the two
Dantes are vastly different, but as the journey progresses the pil-
grim’s knowledge increases, and so he becomes more and more like
the poet.28
Similar distinctions inform The Consolation of Philosophy, which
also presents itself as autobiographical. We should distinguish be-
tween Boethius the prisoner, who speaks with Lady Philosophy, and
Boethius the author, who records their discourse. The dialogue be-
tween the prisoner and Lady Philosophy has come to an end, and
the prisoner has thereby become the author who can record it. Pris-
oner and author are dialectically related: far distant in mind at the
beginning of the work, much closer toward its end. Philosophy has
led Boethius the prisoner on a journey of understanding, and
Boethius the author, now that he has completed it, narrates its
course.
The autobiography in Augustine’s Confessions, of course, is the
great antecedent being imitated by Dante and Boethius. We should
distinguish, therefore, Augustine the bishop, who is recalling his
past journey to Christian faith, from the young Augustine, whose
story he is telling. Scholars usually call both figures “Augustine” and
rely on the context of their discussions to clarify their intention. But
the distinction is so important that I shall always call the character
in Books 1–9 the young Augustine, or something similar (like the
boy Augustine).29 For the young Augustine is by no means the same
28. Dantists do not usually distinguish Dante the poet from Dante the au-
thor, though they should. Dante the poet exists within the fiction of the Comme-
dia: he remembers a journey he once made as the pilgrim. Dante the author
made the whole story up.
29. I use “the young Augustine” in deference to John J. O’Meara’s fine book,
The Young Augustine: An Introduction to the “Confessions” of St. Augustine (New
York: Longman, 1980). John Freccero treats the distinction between Augustine
person as Augustine the bishop: though they are linked by historical

continuity, they are quite different in the values they espouse. The
young Augustine is not converted to Christian faith until the final
chapter of Book 8, and he is not baptized until the middle of Book
9. Theologically, conversion is a death and rebirth, and Augustine
the bishop uses this imagery to describe what happened to the
young Augustine in his conversion. Hence, there is both continuity
and discontinuity between these two Augustines: continuity because
they are the same historical person, and discontinuity because the
values animating the young Augustine significantly perished in his
conversion, when he received “a new life.” The difference between
Augustine the bishop, in his piety and chastity, and the young Au-
gustine, the lustful Manichaean careerist, proves especially marked
in Books 1–6. Yet even in Book 9 a difference remains, and the dis-
tinction is important for clarity. Like the two Dantes, the young
Augustine and Augustine the bishop are dialectically related: the dif-
ference between them grows smaller in the later books of the auto-
biography, but it never disappears.
When we turn to the Proslogion, we do not find the autobio-
graphical record of a past journey, but we do encounter an “I” pray-
ing his way on a meditative ascent. Earlier, I called this pilgrim fig-
ure “Anselm,” as scholars normally do, and sketched the movement
of his ascent. But a potential ambiguity lurks in this usage. When
the historical Anselm wrote chapter 1, so full of prayerful anguish in
its longing for God, did he know how he was going to construct the
rest of the ascent? If he did, then the anguish was a fiction: he al-
the bishop and the young Augustine on the analogy of Dante the poet and Dante
the pilgrim in Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, pp. 119–35 and 258–71. Literary
studies of Augustine and autobiography include Karl Joachim Weintraub, The
Value of the Individual: Self and Circumstance in Autobiography (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1978); William C. Spengemann, The Forms of Autobiography:
Episodes in the History of a Literary Genre (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1980); and James Olney, Memory and Narrative: The Weave of Life-Writing
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
ready knew the happy ending of chapter 26. If he did not know how
the ascent was going to progress, then he must have originally com-
posed it in the sequence of our reading, working from chapter 1 on
up through chapter 26. But his “Preface” suggests that Anselm dis-
covered his famous argument, in chapters 2–4, before he began the
composition of the work.
Anselm’s “Preface” points the way to resolving this issue. There
he tells us about his struggle to discover “one argument” sufficient
by itself to show “that God truly is, and that he is the highest good
.l.l. and the other things we believe regarding the divine substance”
(S 93). After long and frustrating effort, a sudden inspiration
brought him what he had sought and the discovery gave him joy.
Hoping to communicate something of this joy to others, he wrote
the Proslogion “under the guise [sub persona] of one striving to raise
his mind to the contemplation of God and seeking to understand
what he believes” (Preface, S 93–94). In other words, before he be-
gan to write the work, Anselm knew that it would climax in joy and
the contemplation of God. In fact, he constructed the work as a
whole to mime something of his own movement from frustrated
longing to joy. When he wrote chapter 1, he knew how the work
would end.
Nevertheless, the anguish in chapter 1 is real, though it does not
belong to the historical Anselm, as such, but to the character he cre-
ated, whom I will call Anselm the narrator. With the sentence quot-
ed above, the historical Anselm distinguished himself, as author of
the whole Proslogion, from his praying narrator within it. Sub per-
sona, “under the guise,” uses an image derived from the theater, for
persona originally referred to the mask worn by an actor. It is often
translated as “in the person of,” which unfortunately mutes the dis-
tinction between Anselm the author and his persona, the praying
narrator in the work. It also unfortunately mutes the difference that
Anselm established between the Proslogion and the Monologion in
this regard, for he described the latter as written “in the person [in
persona] of someone reasoning silently within himself, investigating

what he does not know” (Preface, S 93). In persona and sub persona
are not the same. Both suggest a distinction between author and per-
sona, yet “sub persona” implies a greater difference. Anselm the narra-
tor in the Proslogion was created by Anselm the author, the historical
human being, as his character in the work. Over the course of the
work, Anselm the narrator raises his mind up to contemplate God
with joy. Anselm the author designed this movement. He did not
experience it as such.
Historians and philosophers have not noticed this distinction,
despite Anselm’s having made it in his “Preface.” It has escaped
their notice, I think, because it does not help them answer the ques-
tions they pose. They want to know what Anselm thought when he
wrote the Proslogion, and the only evidence they have is the Proslo-
gion itself. Also, their scholarship predominantly concerns Anselm’s
famous argument in chapters 2–4, which is almost always separated
for analysis from the work as a whole. Thus separated, it loses its
meaning as a stage in Anselm the narrator’s ascent, and so scholars
do not need to distinguish author and narrator. Unfortunately, this
lack of attention to the work as a whole and to Anselm’s effort to
distinguish himself from his narrator has limited our sense of
Anselm’s achievement. Chapter 4 will show how Anselm the author
implied more in the work as a whole than Anselm the narrator says
in it.
Because this distinction is not only unfamiliar to scholars but
fundamental to the Proslogion, let us explore it further. Anselm de-
scribed the work as an alloquium (Preface, S 94), a “speaking to,” an
address. Though it begins with the narrator addressing himself, it
quickly modulates into prayer, his speaking to God. On the whole,
then, the Proslogion unfolds as the narrator’s prayerful dialogue
with God. The narrator is the praying voice in the work: he is the pil-
grim figure making the ascent. His anguish in chapter 1 is real, for
he does not know where his dialogue with God will lead him. The
author, in contrast, composed the work as a whole. He was the his-

torical Anselm, who designed, drafted, and revised the Proslogion in
a process we cannot now recover. By definition, Anselm the author
stood at a certain distance from his narrator’s anguish in chapter 1
because he already understood the happy ending in chapter 26. The
narrator, however, does not. He feels his anguish acutely, for he is
praying in an ongoing present. Hence, we speak of him properly in
the present tense: he asks questions, hazards answers, laments, re-
joices, and so on. Anselm the author was a historical person, and we
must speak of him in the past tense. As the author of the whole
work, it contains no surprises for him, by definition. For the narra-
tor, on the other hand, the ascent is full of surprises, for he is gradu-
ally raised to a vision of divine things unforeseeable in his anguish
in chapter 1.
By definition, we always know what the narrator is thinking: at
every moment, his consciousness is explicit, for he is wholly utter-
ance. Hence, the narrator is the pilgrim figure in the work, not the
author of the whole: we follow the movements of the narrator’s
heart—not the heart of Anselm the author—as he prays his way for-
ward. The mind of Anselm the author, however, is not necessarily
explicit at any one moment. To be sure, the narrator’s true state-
ments may be ascribed to Anselm the author, too. But Anselm the
author comprehended what is beyond his narrator’s utterances—the
Proslogion as a coherent whole—and therefore the relations between
its parts, or discursive levels. The mind of Anselm in the work as a
whole, therefore, exceeded his narrator’s utterances. By definition,
the narrator’s mind is wholly explicit in every part of the work. By
definition, the mind of Anselm comprehended the implications of
the whole.
The narrator, then, is the voice speaking in the work; the author,
in contrast, wrote the whole of it, and therefore revised it. By defini-
tion, a narrator cannot revise his utterance, because he is speaking:
he may retract what he has said by saying something more, but he
cannot erase what he has spoken. The author, however, had all the
tools at a writer’s disposal, and we assume that Anselm drafted and
revised the Proslogion until it pleased him. Because the narrator
speaks the work, it necessarily presents itself as his unrevised—be-
cause unrevisable—utterance. Anselm the author, of course, did re-
vise the work, and he shaped it in order to dramatize the move-
ments of the narrator’s heart in his quest for God. The rise and fall
of the narrator’s emotions, his struggle to understand, his achieve-
ment of new insights—all these unfold “now” in the course of his
prayer. Anselm the author orchestrated these movements to create a
compelling literary-philosophical work. By definition, the author
stood apart from them because he shaped them into the whole. By
definition, the narrator genuinely experiences them “now,” as we
read: he is the pilgrim figure making the meditative ascent. Anselm
the narrator’s spontaneous affects were Anselm the author’s deliber-
ate effects.
This distinction between the speaking narrator in the work and
the historical author who wrote it may seem odd, but it would not
have troubled medieval readers. They would have readily grasped
the oral character of its self-presentation, because they would have
read it aloud. Scholarship on “orality and literacy” in the Middle
Ages has drawn attention to the differences between medieval and
modern readers.30 Though today we usually read silently, readers in
Anselm’s time customarily read aloud. Even what they called “silent
reading” usually involved murmuring aloud, for they needed to
hear the words in order to understand them. Because they gave
voice to what they read in order “to hear and understand” it, they
would have encountered the oral character of the narrator’s praying
directly, as modern readers do not.
30. See Ivan Illich, In the Vineyard of the Text: A Commentary to Hugh’s “Di-
daliscon” (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993); and Mary Carruthers, The
Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992).
Because scholars have not distinguished Anselm the author

from his narrator, the work’s subtle and powerful literary strategy
has not been fully appreciated. For the narrator’s prayer unfolds in
an ongoing present recreated by our reading, and every reader nec-
essarily recreates it. Every reader necessarily prays the narrator’s
prayer, whether she believes in God or not. Even more, every reader
becomes the narrator: to read the Proslogion at all, we must take on
the utterance of its “I.” We impersonate his thoughts and feelings:
we may not read aloud and so give voice to them, but we do give
our minds to them. We are thereby involved in the narrator’s quest
for God, not by identifying with a character like Dante the pilgrim,
but because we must become the pilgrim narrator in order to read
the work at all.
The distinction between Anselm the author and his narrator is
crucial, not only to the literary qualities of the ascent, but to the
philosophical content of the Proslogion. To be sure, the distinction is
not a separation: the narrator’s utterances prove a reliable index to
the historical Anselm’s thought. Nevertheless, Anselm and his narra-
tor are distinct figures and should not be identified tout court, as
scholars do when they confuse both as “Anselm.” When they do
so, they reduce Anselm’s thought in the work to the narrator’s utterances,
and this leads them to underestimate the philosophical achieve-
ment of the Proslogion as a whole. As a meditative ascent, the narra-
tor progresses through levels of discourse: he does not explore the
relations between the levels that the historical Anselm established
in the work. Anselm’s philosophical achievement in the Proslogion
exceeded his narrator’s statements, and he expected his readers to
meditate on the ascent and thereby work out its implications.
This distinction, between the author who wrote the whole work
and the narrator praying “now” in it, also applies to Augustine’s
Confessions. Indeed, Anselm imitated the Confessions by constructing
the Proslogion as the narrator’s prayerful dialogue with God in a
meditative ascent. This distinction and its consequences for under-
standing the Confessions will be argued in the next chapter, but the
salient points have already been set forth here. We should distin-
guish the historical Augustine, the author of the work as a whole,
from Augustine the narrator, praying his way to understandings in
the course of his dialogue with God. Augustine the author implied
meanings that Augustine the narrator does not utter. One of these
we explored earlier: the ascent from autobiographical “memories,”
in Books 1–9, to the power of “memory,” in Book 10. The Confes-
sions does not remark on this ascent because Augustine the narrator
is too involved in his unfolding dialogue with God to notice it. But
Augustine the author designed it, and he expected his best readers
to notice it and reflect upon it.
One reason scholars have been reluctant to understand the Con-
fessions as a meditative ascent is that they look for only one Augus-
tine. They identify the mind of Augustine with the voice of his nar-
rator, and so they reduce the philosophical scope of the work to its
explicit statements. Hence they do not understand the whole Con-
fessions as a meditative ascent, and so they tend not to explore the
relations between its various levels. In contrast, once we grasp the
distinction between Augustine the author and his narrator, we begin
to explore the mind of Augustine in the work in new ways. I hope to
show how this distinction leads to a new sense of the work as a
whole and to new kinds of questions for exploring it.
In short, the Confessions features two pilgrim figures, the young
Augustine and Augustine the narrator. Both were the nonfictional
creations of the historical Augustine, the bishop of Hippo. Earlier, I
described a dramatic change in the work’s theology of the Trinity,
between chapters 11 and 16 in Book 13, and ascribed it to “Augus-
tine,” as is common in scholarship. It should now be clear that the
change occurs in the narrator, not in the author. Augustine the au-
thor did not change his mind about the Trinity between chapters 11
and 16. Rather, he designed these chapters to reveal a change occur-
ing in Augustine the narrator. Though scholars may find these dis-
Habits of Understanding 53
tinctions odd, because unfamiliar, they point to Augustine the au-

thor’s complex literary strategies and suggest the rich matrix of
meanings they generate. Historians using Books 1–9 as evidence for
Augustine’s life may not need to make these distinctions. But they
will prove useful for anyone seeking to understand Augustine’s liter-
ary and philosophical achievement in the Confessions as a whole.
Habits of Understanding
I have been arguing for some unfamiliar literary distinctions and
new ways of understanding a Christian-Platonist ascent. To make
my case persuasive, I need to do more than show how these inter-
pretive strategies illuminate (say) the Confessions. After all, new in-
terpretations are often dismissed as merely ingenious. To persuade
the skeptical scholar of my views, two things need to be shown, one
negative and one positive. First, some account must be given for
why scholars have not already arrived at these views. The Confes-
sions, for example, enjoys an impressive body of scholarship. If
scholars have not heretofore distinguished between Augustine the
author and his narrator, it is hardly for lack of intelligence, but for
some other reason. This task is negative: to remove scholarly resist-
ance to my views by accounting for it. Second, I need to show that,
though modern scholars have largely overlooked these ways of un-
derstanding a meditative ascent, the original audience would have
used them. This task is positive: to show that Augustine and Anselm
would have expected their readers to understand the paradigm and
principles I have been describing. My response on both these scores
has already been suggested and needs only some elaboration here.
Modern scholarship on these works has run predominantly in
two veins, historical and philosophical. These two veins often come
together, for they have some things in common, but I will treat
them separately, using the Confessions to illustrate them. In the first,
scholars pose questions oriented toward facts. For example, what
were the facts of Augustine’s life? What did he do, and where, when,
and why did he do it? What was his education like and how did it
influence him? What sources did he quote from and allude to in
writing the Confessions? How was he influenced by these sources? Is
the account of his conversion in Book 8 historically factual?31 Schol-
arship in this vein has amassed a large body of factual knowledge
useful to every serious student of the work. Although historians
have by no means been literalist readers of the Confessions, their
questions tend to seek literalist, because factual, answers. With this
orientation, there can only be one Augustine. Augustine the author
and the young Augustine are the same person, and the narrator does
not exist, because this persona answers no relevant—that is, histori-
cal—questions.
In the second, philosophical, vein, scholars pose questions ori-
ented toward doctrines or positions. What was Augustine’s position
on “memory” in the Confessions? On the nature of time? On the na-
ture of evil? On the hermeneutics of Scripture? They have no brief
against “the young Augustine,” but he does not exist for them, be-
cause he did not develop any philosophical views in the work. Sub-
tle and discerning as these scholars have been, their doctrinal orien-
tation has literalist assumptions. They assume that Augustine had a
position on a particular issue and that he intended to state it explic-
itly. To be sure, they recognize certain aspects of the Confessions’s
meditative character: some have written beautifully about its inquisi-
tio veritatis, its “inquiry in quest of the truth.” But they tend to see
this as merely a literary means to engage readers in the pursuit of
philosophical truth. The real philosophical action lies in the doctri-
nal conclusion and the reasons supporting it.
Hence, a scholar in this vein labors to tease out Augustine’s doc-
trine from the often wandering inquiry. Formed by his study of
31. For recent work, a bibliography, and a view of opposite sides in this long
debate, see Henry Chadwick, “History and Symbolism in the Garden at Milan,”
in From Augustine to Eriugena: Essays on Neoplatonism and Christianity in Honor of
John O’Meara, edited by F. X. Martin, O.S.A., and J. A. Richmond (Washington,
Scholastic or analytic philosophy, he assumes that Augustine had a

position and stated it as unambiguously as he could. He recognizes
the work’s meditative texture, its style of posing questions and work-
ing toward answers, but not its meditative structure, which implies
understandings by the relations between levels of the ascent. A doc-
trinal philosophy demands explicit positions and arguments. Be-
cause it has no notion of implied truths, to be found by meditating
on the relations between discursive levels, it cannot seek them. With
this orientation, the distinction between Augustine the author and
his narrator remains invisible because unthinkable. Augustine’s
philosophical achievement in the Confessions is thereby reduced to
what it states explicitly.
In short, literalist assumptions underlie the prevailing tradition
of historical and philosophical scholarship. (Literary interpretation
of the Confessions arose more recently and has focused largely on
Books 1–9.)32 Scholars have not distinguished between the histori-
cal Augustine and his narrator, not for lack of careful reading, but
because their assumptions could not admit its relevance. Valuable as
their work is, their assumptions have limited our understanding.
Now late antique and medieval readers came to these works
with different habits of understanding, different questions and as-
sumptions. Indeed, we owe our understanding of these to modern
historical research. For one thing, they read these works aloud and
so would have readily grasped the oral character of the Confessions
and the Proslogion. For another, biblical typology schooled them in
the structure of a meditative ascent, for they were used to exploring
the relations between levels in a work. Because the Christian Bible
unfolded climactically, in a movement to higher and higher levels, it
D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991), pp. 42–55; and Leo C. Fer-
rari, The Conversions of St. Augustine (Villanova, Pa.: Augustinian Institute, 1984).
32. Pioneers of literary interpretation include Leo C. Ferrari and Eugene
Vance. I do not regard philological research and quellenforschung as “literary” but
as historical.
was held to have four interpretive levels: literal (or historical), alle-
gorical, anagogical, and moral. The Old Testament allegorically pre-
figured the New Testament and anagogically prefigured future glory.
Literal, historical persons and events in the Old Testament foreshad-
owed their fulfillment in Christ, allegorically, and their ultimate ful-
fillment at the end of time, anagogically. Moreover, any text could
also be interpreted morally, with respect to the reader’s own life. In
short, any moment in the biblical history of salvation could be
validly understood in relation to any other moment, to the pattern
of the whole, and to oneself.
Similarly, in the meditative ascent, earlier levels foreshadow lat-
er ones, which fulfill them. Each level must be understood “literal-
ly,” in its own right, and also in relation to other levels and to the
ascent as a whole. In this way, a reader discovers truths that are nev-
er stated in any single place. In the Bible, allegorical and anagogical
meanings emerge only from relations between texts, and so can be
discovered only by retrospective rereading. So, too, full understand-
ing of a meditative ascent emerges only by meditating on its inter-
nal relations. Furthermore, I have argued that each of these works
aims to initiate readers into its meditative practices. Its ultimate
message is “Go and do likewise,” like the moral interpretation of
Scripture.
In other words, late antique and medieval readers read the Bible
meditatively: they sought to grasp its patterns of internal relations
and apply them to their own lives. But they also read meditatively in
another related sense: slowly, carefully, memorizing long passages
and repeating them often, working to appropriate a work deeply,
“by heart.” The monastic tradition called this effort lectio divina, the
prayerful reading of Scripture, and every monk was schooled in its
practices. A monk, for example, would normally spend a year on a
single gospel so as to assimilate it deeply and fully. Meditatio was of-
ten linked to chewing and digesting the spiritual food of a text, ru-
minating upon it, savoring the sweetness of its truth. The “four lev-
els” of Scripture were central to lectio divina, for the meditating

monk applied his text morally, to his own life, and sought its deeper
truths of faith allegorically and anagogically. The “sweetness” of
meditation was frequently extolled, and the monks explored the re-
lations between various biblical texts with astonishing freedom and
acumen.
The roots of this tradition preceded Augustine by more than a
century, and he was adept at meditating on Scripture in these ways.
But non-Christian readers likewise devoted themselves to classical
texts with similar habits of understanding. They read, memorized,
and meditated on works of classical literature, often interpreting
them as philosophical allegories. They drew general moral lessons
from them, and applied them specifically to their own lives.33 As
Pierre Hadot has shown, non-Christian philosophers also engaged
in a variety of spiritual exercises, based on their reading and evident
in their writing. In general, late antique and medieval readers had
very few books but nourished their minds deeply by meditating
upon them.
In sum, then, late antique and medieval readers expected to in-
terpret the relations between various parts or levels of a work. They
knew that a work’s literal meanings were primary, but not final: the
literal meanings provided the basis for meanings and patterns not
stated explicitly. These readers knew how to meditate on a work,
and the authors we are studying knew how to write for them. For
such readers, the historical facts of modern historians were relatively
unimportant, as such, compared to the deeper meanings they held
for faith (allegory), for eternity (anagogy), and for one’s own life
(morality). In their reading habits, also, a philosophical position in
a meditative ascent proved not the end of understanding, but a be-
ginning for meditation. They knew that the position, however valu-
33. For this tradition and a bibliography on it, see Robert Lamberton, Homer
the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986).
able in its own right, was a station along the way, and they knew
how to meditate on its relations to levels above and below. Modern
scholars may find my treatment of these relations irrelevant to their
concerns, which they rightfully define for themselves. But now, at
least, they have a brief account of why they have not noticed the lit-
erary strategies so important to the present book.
The same point can also be made by comparing the current
states of biblical and patristic scholarship. Until the 1980s, biblical
scholarship was predominantly historical and philological, so much
so that source and redaction criticism were often considered to be
“literary.” Early in that decade, however, scholars began to publish
books in what came to be called “narrative criticism,” employing
the techniques of a properly literary criticism to understand books
of the Bible as coherent wholes.34 Where historical and philological
techniques tended to fractionate a gospel, the new literary study
aimed to see it steadily and whole. These scholars distinguished the
author of a gospel from its narrator, and sometimes the implied
author from the historical one. The techniques they employed led
to new understandings, simultaneously literary and theological.35
Their work recovered the design of a book as a whole, how it was
designed to work upon its audience. These studies have repristinat-
ed not only the books of the Bible but the field of biblical studies.
Patristic scholarship, in contrast, has largely ignored these tech-
niques of literary study. Its prevailing methods remain historical
and philological and, in philosophy, analytic. The level of scholar-
34. Pioneering books in this field include Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical
Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981); David Rhoads and Donald Michie,
Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, 1982); and R. Alan Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Lit-
erary Design (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983).
35. See Thomas L. Brodie, The Gospel According to John: A Literary and Theolog-
ical Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 3–76, for an analy-
sis of the differences between different kinds of biblical interpretation and an el-
egant treatment of John’s Gospel as a whole.
Summary 59
ship is high—witness the superb commentaries by Joachim Grubar

on The Consolation of Philosophy and James J. O’Donnell on the Con-
fessions, Peter Brown’s biography of Augustine and R. W. Southern’s
on Anselm, among other achievements. Nevertheless, the prevailing
methods of analysis focus on the local and literal level of these
works. These methods presume that the author’s meanings can be
recovered in this way. My view, in contrast, is that these methods re-
cover only the narrator’s meanings, for the author has implied med-
itative meanings in the work as a whole, and these can be recovered
only by understanding its structure and reflecting on the relations
between its stages. Also, although we know a good deal about the
methods of literary interpretation practiced by Augustine, Boethius,
and Anselm, these methods have not been used by scholars to study
their works. As a result, the deeper, meditative levels of the Confes-
sions, Consolation, and Proslogion remain largely unexplored. Al-
though the spiritual value of these works is warmly appreciated,
they have rarely been studied as “spiritual exercises,” largely because
historical and philological analysis does not ask meditative ques-
tions.
The present book aims to ask some meditative questions and
show how they might be answered. Just as biblical scholars have
used new techniques to explore the literary and theological unity of
a gospel, so do I employ similar techniques to treat the literary and
philosophical coherence of the Confessions, Consolation, and Proslo-
gion. This chapter has set forth the principles of the meditative ascent
and explained the rationale to be pursued in the chapters that fol-
low. I do not claim to explore all that needs to be explored in these
works. I attempt to chart a new track, hoping that others will follow
to develop, and perhaps correct, what is said here.
Summary
Let me conclude this chapter by gathering together the princi-
ples governing the literary and philosophical structure of a medita-
tive ascent. As a journey of return to the Origin, the ascent moves

steadily “upward” and “back,” to principles of being ever higher
and prior, logically and ontologically. Higher principles of being
ground, and therefore govern, lower ones: the power of memory, for
example, forms the basis of all particular memories. The meditation
thereby ascends to levels of being ever more fundamental, more
general, more lasting, more universal. Though we moderns may
think of these higher categories as “less real,” because vaguer and
more abstract, the Christian Platonist found them more real be-
cause more comprehensive. They understood the ascent as a medi-
tative journey into greater and greater reality, culminating in Ulti-
mate Reality.
This ascent to Reality is both an interior journey and a journey
into the interior. By definition, a meditative journey is not made by
walking, sailing, or flying, but by reflecting in language. It begins
with the inward turn of Christian-Platonist conversion: the pilgrim
soul “returns into itself,” away from things outside (extra se) to
those within (intra se), and so is led to those above (supra se). It as-
cends to ever higher levels of being by progressing to higher levels of
discourse. But “higher” also means “deeper,” more fundamental:
higher principles of “being in general” prove deeper principles of
our human being. When the Christian Platonist ascends meditative-
ly, he journeys into the depths of his being and of all being. The in-
terior journey journeys into the interior of reality.
To understand a meditative ascent, we must grasp not only its
explicit statements on each discursive level but also the implied re-
lations between levels, and especially those with the highest level.
The meditative ascent is written with this deliberate literary strategy:
we cannot understand it fully without meditating on it. It demands
retrospective rereading. Just as God is both the Origin and the End
of the journey, so the meditative vision of God at its climax proves
the ground of the work as a whole. Hence, we need to understand
how successive levels prove higher and prior, logically and ontologi-
Summary 61
cally. But we also need to understand, in interpretive retrospect,

how its conclusion is related to each earlier level as its ultimate
ground.
In addition to its pattern as an ascent, each of these works is chi-
astically structured in numerologically significant ways. This struc-
ture is implied and can be discovered not by reading alone, but by
reflecting on the work as a whole. A chiasm is a ring structure—
hence, a circle—and a cross, for the Greek letter chi is an X. The cir-
cle and the cross evoke fundamental beliefs in Christian Platonism:
procession and return; creation and salvation; the “still circle” of di-
vinity; Christ’s Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection; the crossing
of the two cosmic Motions; and the divine order of the heavens.
Chiastic structure thereby unifies and ramifies a meditative ascent
because each theme is related to it, and through it can be related to
all other themes. Like the Bible, and for similar reasons, these works
are meditatively inexhaustible.
In other words, a meditative ascent is not an argument, though
it uses passages of argument. Primarily, it is a journey made through
dialogue, and hence a spiritual exercise. Each of these works features
a pilgrim figure seeking God, on a journey in quest of truth. None
of these pilgrim figures knows precisely where he is going or how to
get there, and so his journey is full of surprising insights and discov-
eries. The journeys all succeed, moreover, because they all unfold as
dialogues and each pilgrim figure is guided to some kind of fulfill-
ment. This is obvious in the Commedia, where Dante the pilgrim is
guided on his journey by Virgil and Beatrice, and in The Consolation
of Philosophy, where Lady Philosophy explicitly teaches Boethius the
prisoner. But it is no less true for the Confessions and the Proslogion,
where the pilgrim figures pray to God and are guided to fulfillment
by grace. The character of the Confessions as a “dialogue with God”
has long been recognized, and Anselm took up its principles when
he took up its literary and philosophical form. In all of these works,
the pilgrim figure should be distinguished from the author, even
though both have the same name. Anselm the narrator, “struggling
to raise his mind to the contemplation of God” (“Preface”), is a dif-
ferent figure from Anselm the author, who orchestrated his medita-
tive ascent.
The author designed the meditative ascent to effect, simultane-
ously, the progressive transformation of its pilgrim figure and its key
words. These transformations are recorded in the work, but rarely
reflected upon within it: the author left their rationale to be discov-
ered by the reader. In the Commedia, “love” comes to have new
meanings at higher levels of the ascent, and these are analogous to
the change being wrought in Dante the pilgrim. In the Confessions,
“friendship” means something different in the conversion account
in Book 8 than it does in the pear theft in Book 2, and this differ-
ence indicates a corresponding change in the young Augustine.
These differences are registered in the work, but not remarked upon.
The pilgrim figure is too involved in his unfolding progress to reflect
on the pattern of his transformation. The author, however, under-
stood this pattern, as the design of his work reveals. But he left its ra-
tionale to be discovered by the meditative reader, reflecting on the
work as a whole. Our meditating on the transformation of its pil-
grim figure and its key words is designed to effect a transformation
in us. A meditative ascent is a work of transformation: the transfor-
mations within the work are designed to work a transformation in
the meditative reader.
Hence, each of these works proves a spiritual exercise, both ex-
plicitly and implicitly. Each pilgrim figure engages in an arduous
quest for truth, and we participate in his spiritual exercise by follow-
ing carefully the story of his quest. In addition, the author of each
work invites us to meditate on what its structure implies. What Au-
gustine the author said in the Confessions surpassed the utterances of
Augustine the narrator. The mind of Augustine the author can only
be discovered by reflecting on the work as a whole. Augustine the
narrator prays his way forward and rarely stops to look back. But as
Summary 63
in life, so in reading: we read forward and understand backward. To

understand the author’s intentions in a meditative ascent, we must
meditate on it as a completed whole, something its narrator never
does. We thereby participate in the spiritual exercise its author per-
formed in designing the work.
CHAPTER 2
THE UNITY OF MEDITATIVE
STRUCTURE AND TEXTURE IN
AUGUSTINE’S CONFESSIONS
A U G U S T I N E ’ S Confessions is not only the earliest work treated

in this book but also the longest, the richest, and the most complex.
The later works derive from it, because each looks back to the Con-
fessions for one or more of its fundamental literary principles.
Boethius and Dante imitated its autobiographical structure and
Anselm its prayerful quest for truth. To understand any of these
works, we need to grasp its literary genre and structure so as to un-
derstand its unity. We can then go on to explore the philosophical
implications contained by this unified structure. These implications
are properly meditative and, as such, they may well not satisfy our
contemporary, analytical sense of what is genuinely philosophical.
Nevertheless, writers in late antiquity and the Middle Ages had a
somewhat different sense of what “the love of wisdom” entailed,
and we must accept their sense of “philosophy” if we wish to under-
stand their achievement.1
1. For any topic in Augustine’s life and thought, one should begin by consult-
ing Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, edited by Allan Fitzgerald, O.S.A.,
et al. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999); all the entries are well written and
have bibliographies. For specific questions about passages in the Confessions, one
should begin by consulting the superb scholarship exhibited in Augustine, The
Confessions: Text and Commentary, 3 vols., edited with an Introduction and Com-
mentary by James J. O’Donnell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). Colin Starnes,
Augustine’s Conversion: A Guide to the Argument of “Confessions” I–IX (Waterloo,
Ontario: Wilfred Laurier Press, 1990), is a useful guide to the autobiography,
64
The Unity of Meditative Structure and Texture 65
In order to understand Augustine’s meditative philosophy in the

Confessions, we must first understand the work’s unity, its formal co-
herence. The present chapter treats this formal coherence in three
sections, while the following chapter explores the work’s meditative
philosophy.2 The first section describes the Confessions’s meditative
structure as a Christian-Platonist ascent, a return to the Origin. The
second treats the meditative texture of its literary genre as a prayer, a
“dialogue with God.” The final section brings these two themes to-
gether and shows how the allegorical interpretation of Genesis 1 in
Book 13 provides the paradigm for the whole Confessions. The work
is shown to have not merely a unity through its leading themes, as
many scholars have argued, but also a plan, a deeply structured for-
mal coherence.3
The distinction between “unity” and “plan” was made by Luc
Verheijen in an effort to bring some clarity to the long debate about
the formal coherence of the Confessions.4 Verheijen points to several
themes and modes of expression running throughout the work, all
of which lend it “unity.” This unity derives from Augustine’s “unity
while the essays in Kim Paffenroth and Robert P. Kennedy, eds., A Reader’s Com-
panion to Augustine’s “Confessions” (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press,
2003), cover all thirteen books.
2. Parts of the present chapter are argued, in abbreviated form, in Robert
McMahon, “Book Thirteen: Augustine’s Return to the Origin,” in Paffenroth and
Kennedy, eds., A Reader’s Companion, pp. 207–23.
3. Brian Stock, Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics
of the Reader (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
1996), treats meditation in Augustine’s works more widely, but his working no-
tion of “meditation” in that book differs from mine. For Stock, “meditation” is
discursively explicit, and synonyms for it would include “reflection,” “rumina-
tion,” and “mulling over,” as in the monastic tradition of meditatio. But, in the
present book, “meditation” points rather to implied meanings orchestrated by
the genre of the meditative ascent, a Christian-Platonist ascent enacted over the
whole Confessions.
4. Luc Verheijen, “The Confessions: Two Grids of Composition and Mean-
ing,” a paper presented in 1989 at the Patristics, Medieval, and Renaissance Con-
ference, Villanova University. In Verheijen’s absence, Frederick Van Fleteren pre-
sented his paper.
66 The Unity of Meditative Structure and Texture
of soul,” for he was a man with persistent concerns and habits of ex-
pression. Yet Verheijen finds no coherent plan in the Confessions.
Like other scholars, he acknowledges the large divisions in the work:
the autobiography in Books 1–9, Book 10 on memory, and Books
11–13 on Genesis 1. But he finds no plan linking them one to an-
other, unifying the work as a whole by some compelling scheme.
This seems to be the scholarly consensus. Frederick Van Fleteren, in
his entry on the Confessions for the Augustine encyclopedia, says that
“[o]f course, Augustine never intended to write a literary classic—
Confessiones may in fact be disunited—and, therefore, search for uni-
ty may be vain.”5
In my view, however, the Confessions is constructed according to
a plan, one that incorporates its seeming planlessness. The work
thereby has a deep formal coherence. In Chapter 1, I suggested that
scholars have missed Augustine’s plan in the work because they
have not distinguished Augustine the narrator, the voice in the Con-
fessions, from Augustine the author, who designed the work as a
whole. Augustine the narrator never comments on his plan for the
work because he does not have one: it emerges through the spon-
taneities of his dialogue with God. But Augustine the author did
have a plan for the work, for he designed it as a Christian-Platonist
ascent. The formal coherence of the Confessions cannot be under-
stood without grasping this distinction. Augustine’s general plan is
sketched out in the following section, but the work’s deep formal
coherence emerges only by reflecting on its meditative texture as a
“dialogue with God.”6
5. “Confessiones,” in Allan D. Fitzgerald, ed., Augustine through the Ages, p.

228. Pace Van Fleteren, Augustine sets his Confessions against the Aeneid (Conf.
1.13), the literary classic of late antiquity. See Andrew Fichter’s brilliant (and neg-
lected) analysis in Poets Historical: Dynastic Epic in the Renaissance (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982), pp. 40–69. On Augustine and Vergil more
generally, see Sabine MacCormack, The Shadows of Poetry: Vergil in the Mind of Au-
gustine (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998).
6. This chapter abbreviates my book, Augustine’s Prayerful Ascent: An Essay on
Meditative Structure 67
Meditative Structure: Return to the Origin

The structure of the Confessions works out the implications of its
theological anthropology, epitomized in its most famous sentence.
Its first chapter declares that God stirs us up to delight in praising
Him, because “You have made us toward yourself and our heart is
restless until it rests in you” (fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nos-
trum donec requiescat in te; 1.1.1). I have translated this literally and
awkwardly, to point up certain features. First, “you have made us”
obviously alludes to God’s creation of human beings in Genesis
1:26–27. But for Augustine’s readers, the allusion includes “toward
yourself” (ad te) because the Latin Bible renders the act as God’s cre-
ating humans “toward [his] image” (ad imaginam), rather than “in”
it. According to this understanding, Christ alone is the Image of
God, and human beings are made “toward” that Image. The human
being is an image of this Image, so to speak. We are made “toward”
God—in fact, toward the Second Person of the Trinity, God in
Christ.
Second, Augustine’s “toward yourself” implies an innate inclina-
tion in human nature. Human beings are innately, by our very na-
ture, drawn toward God. That is why the human heart is “restless”
amid all the goods of the created world. So many things please, but
none of them satisfies. Even all of them together would not satisfy
the human heart, so swiftly are we wearied by satiety. Augustine ex-
perienced in himself and others this inability to find enduring
peace, even in great worldly success. He presents the restless heart as
an index in this world that human beings are made by and for
Someone beyond it. Hence, the Augustinian heart has both an in-
completeness, for it is “restless,” and a directionality, toward God.
the Literary Form of the “Confessions” (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989).
For scholarship on “the unity of the Confessions,” see pp. xi–xv and 40–42; for a
more detailed review, see Gennaro Luongo, “Autobiografia ed esegesi nelle Con-
fessioni di Agostino,” Parola del Passato 31 (1976): 286–306.
Moreover, his phrasing links the individual with all humankind:

“our heart is restless until it rests in you” (my emphasis). This rest-
lessness is manifested in every human heart and in the human race
as a whole. As is well known, this sentence foreshadows the peace of
heart Augustine experienced at his conversion (8.12.29), the eternal
rest he hopes for after death, and the eternal sabbath of all the saved
at the end of time (13.35–38). In its context, the sentence explains
why we delight in worship, and thus implies the Church. The
Church, as we shall see, carries Augustine’s understanding of the
meaning of creation and the purpose of history. Because we are
made “toward” God’s Image, Christ, we find our fulfillment in his
Mystical Body, the Church.
Hence, creation is not merely an event that happened long ago,
to Adam and Eve. Every human being is made “toward God’s im-
age”: the restlessness of every human heart manifests its creation by
God. Later in the Confessions Augustine touches on the Divine Pres-
ence in human beings even when we are not aware of it. Remember-
ing when the young Augustine sought for God outwardly “accord-
ing to the sense of the flesh,” the bishop declares that God is “more
inward than my innermost and higher than my uppermost” (interior
intimo meo et superior summo meo; 3.6.11). Interior intimo meo may be
freely rendered as “more inward to me than I am to myself.” The Di-
vine Presence proves more inward than the self because the self is
formed by the contents of experience. The inward Divine Presence,
however, constitutes the human being as such, as the creature made
“toward [God’s] image,” and thereby enables human experiencing
in the first place.
Similarly, addressing the divine Beauty “ever old and ever new,”
Augustine recalls that “[y]ou were within, and I was in the external
world, and sought you there,” for “[y]ou were with me, and I was
not with you” (10.27.38). He affirms that God is somehow present
in actuating the consciousness of human beings, whether we know
it or not. The Divine Presence in our nature makes us “restless” for
happiness. Our search for “the happy life” (10.20–23) arises from
our very depths, for we have no earthly experience of the happiness

we long for. This happiness is not an object of remembered experi-
ence, yet our desire for it quickens all that we do. This longing for
we-know-not-what happiness is a longing to experience the Divine
Presence—”When I seek for you, my God, my quest is for the happy
life” (10.20.29)—and it arises from the Divine Presence within us.
For Augustine, God is the source and term, the Origin and End, of
all human desire.
Because Augustinian desire seeks its fulfillment by moving to-
ward God, simultaneously its “inward” Origin and its “upward”
End, the Confessions as a whole is structured as a return to the Ori-
gin, a Christian-Platonist ascent. The ascent, let us recall, is based on
the exitus-reditus scheme: as all things come forth from God, so do
all things return to God. This “return to the Origin” is a meditative
movement to principles: it ascends progressively to principles logi-
cally prior, and therefore ontologically higher, for Platonist princi-
ples are universals, realms of being. Hence, the ascent moves not
merely to categories progressively more general, as in our nominal-
ist way of thinking, but to realms of being more universal and real,
because they comprehend more of reality. At the same time, the Pla-
tonist arrives at these realms “above himself” (supra se) after taking
the inward turn, away from things “outside him” (extra se) to the
principles of the soul within (in se). The Platonist ascent moves not
only “upward” but also “inward,” to universal principles ontologi-
cally higher because more interior. In this way, the meditator moves
toward the Divine Presence “more inward than [his] innermost and
higher than [his] uppermost” (3.6.11).
Let us see how this pattern works itself out in the Confessions,
first as a progress to what is prior, logically and ontologically, and
then as an interior movement.7 The progress from Books 1–9 to
Books 10 and 11 was charted in Chapter 1 and so may be merely
7. My treatment of the ascent as a progress to what is prior derives from Ken-

neth Burke, The Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology, pp. 123–24, 141–57; it
sketched here. After examining certain of his memories in his spiri-

tual autobiography (Books 1–9), Augustine the narrator explores
memory, in Book 10, and time, in Book 11. Memories cannot exist
without memory, and memory cannot exist without time. Memory,
then, is logically and ontologically prior to memories, as is time to
memory. Time is the precondition of memory, and thus of memo-
ries.8
Book 12 is largely taken up with the narrator’s interpreting
“heaven and earth” in Genesis 1:1. He holds that “heaven” refers to
the “heaven of heavens,” the “incorporeal creation” (12.8–9), and
“earth” refers to the “formless matter” from which the world would
be made (12.3–7). Both of these, he argues, exist prior to time,
though neither is properly eternal (12.12–13). Before the world ex-
ists, there is no time; “heaven and earth,” pure form and pure mat-
ter, are the pretemporal constituents of the world. Hence, “heaven
and earth,” in Book 12, are logically and ontologically prior to time,
in Book 11.
Book 13 concludes the work, and it closes by interpreting the
seven days of Creation as an allegory for the creation and growth of
the Church (13.12–38).9 Summarizing his treatment of the six days
in chapter 34, Augustine the narrator begins, “We have seen into [in-
abbreviates McMahon, Augustine’s Prayerful Ascent, pp. 115–55. Other treatments

include R. D. Crouse, “‘Recurrens in te unum’: The Pattern of St. Augustine’s Con-
fessions,” Studia Patristica 14:389–92; and G. N. Knauer, “Peregrinatio animae. Zur
Frage der Einheit der augustinischen Konfessionen,” Hermes 85 (1957): 216–48.
8. For the themes of eternity and time in these books, see John C. Cooper,
“Why Did Augustine Write Books XI–XIII of the Confessions?,” Augustinian Studies
2 (1971): 37–46; John M. Quinn, O.S.A., “Four Faces of Time in St. Augustine,”
Recherches Augustiniennes 26 (1992): 181–231; Roland J. Teske, S.J., Paradoxes of
Time in St. Augustine, The Aquinas Lecture 1996 (Marquette, Wis.: Marquette
University Press, 1996); Katherin A. Rogers, “St. Augustine on Time and Eterni-
ty,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 70 (1996): 207–23; and Mary T.
Clark, “Augustine on Immutability and Mutability,” American Catholic Philosophi-
cal Quarterly 74, no. 1 (2000): 7–27.
9. The best treatment of book 13 is F. Cayre, “Le livre XIII des Confessions,”
speximus] these things according to the mystical purpose with which

you willed [voluisti] them to come into being in such an order, or to
be written in such an order” (13.34.49). Augustine claims that his
allegory for the Church reveals the purpose for which God willed
the sequential order of the creation, or of the creation story. Odd
though Augustine’s allegory and claim may be to us, the fundamen-
tal point was entirely traditional. The Shepherd of Hermas affirmed
that “[t]he world was created for the sake of the Church,” and
Clement of Alexandria explained that “[j]ust as God’s will is cre-
ation and is called ‘the world,’ so his intention is the salvation of
men, and it is called ‘the Church.’”10
For Augustine, then, the allegory of the Church in Book 13 re-
veals God’s purpose in creation, or in inspiring its account in Gene-
sis. Since purpose is logically and ontologically prior to act, the
Church, as God’s purpose, is logically and ontologically prior to cre-
ation. Moreover, as the Mystical Body of Christ, it is understood to
be eternal: it preceded the world in God’s mind and will endure be-
yond the end of the world in the “eternal Sabbath” (13.35–38) of
his presence. In this traditional understanding, the Church is the di-
vine origin and the goal of all things. As God’s purpose and goal in
creating, the Church is logically prior to and ontologically higher
than all created things. Augustine’s meditative ascent can go no fur-
ther than his vision into the providential order of creation and the
Church. His return to the Origin is complete, and his Confessions
come to a close.
Now let us consider the progressively interior movement of this
ascent.11 It proves obvious in the progress from memories, in Books
1–9, to memory, in Book 10, for the faculty of memory proves deep-
10. See Pastor Hermae, Book I, Vision 2, 4, 1, in Patrologia Cursus Completus,

Series Graeca, edited by J.-P. Migne (Paris, 1857), vol. 2, column 899; and
Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 1, 6, 27, in Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series
Graeca (Paris, 1891), vol. 8, column 281.
11. I am grateful to Todd Breyfogle for helping me to understand the interior
progress of Books 10–12.
er than its contents. In Books 11, 12, and 13, the interior progress of
the ascent emerges in the final chapters. Near the end of Book 11,
Augustine concludes that time contains memory as one of its as-
pects. Discovering that only the present exists, he analyzes time psy-
chologically, as “attention” (attentio; 11.28) in the present to various
things: memory is attention to things past; the present is attention
to things present; expectation is attention to things future. Atten-
tion, then, is necessary to memory, prior to it, and deeper in the
soul. That is why its scope extends not only to things past but also
to things present and future.
From “attention,” near the end of Book 11, the ascent moves to
“the will” (voluntas) in the final chapters of Book 12. After treating
his own and various other interpretations of “heaven and earth” in
chapters 2–22, the narrator begins to reflect on hermeneutic princi-
ples. These all turn on the moral disposition (voluntas) of inter-
preters attempting to understand the intention (voluntas) of Moses
and of God in Genesis 1 (12.23.32, 12.24.33, 12.28.38, 12.30.41,
12.32.43). Because Augustine refuses to consider the views of
heretics or unbelievers (12.14.17, 12.16.23, 12.23.32), the “rule of
faith” governs his whole discussion: all the differing interpretations
are true, because the rule of faith excludes false ones. He goes on to
develop “the rule of charity”: no exegete should prefer his interpre-
tations to other true ones simply because it is his (12.25, 30–31).
Because charity is the end or goal of Scripture, what the Holy Spirit
willed when inspiring it, charity should bring concord of the will to
exegetes with differing views. Book 12 closes with Augustine praying
to conform his interpretation to God’s will in Scripture: “I would
say what your Truth willed [voluerit] to say to me, which also spoke
to [Moses] what it willed [voluit]” (12.32.43). Now faith and charity
are dispositions of the rightly oriented will. Clearly, the directing of
attention depends on the will, and right attention depends on a
rightly oriented will. The will is a principle prior to attention, more
important and powerful because more interior, deeper in the soul.
The movement from “attention,” at the end of Book 11, to “will,” at

the end of Book 12, marks an interior progress.
Book 13, as we have seen, closes with the purpose God wills in
creation. Obviously, God’s will (voluisti; 13.34.49) is prior to and
higher than the will (voluntas) of human beings. At the same time,
the purpose that God wills in creation is the Church, to share his life
with human creatures made in his image, and this divine desire is
stamped by its presence interior intimo within the restless human
heart. “You have made us toward yourself, and our heart is restless
until it rests in you” (1.1.1; my emphasis). This formulation points
to the Church: not only is every human heart restless toward God,
but also a single corporate heart seeks rest in the Divine Presence. In
the Church, the divine creation continues in the Divine Providence
guiding our restless heart, individually and corporately, toward its
eternal rest. In other words, when Augustine recognizes the Church
as God’s purpose in creation, at the end of Book 13, he recognizes
the deepest aspect of himself. Here is the divine ground of the long-
ing that animates his will (Book 12), his attention (Book 11), and
his memory (Book 10). Further inward he cannot go. His innermost
is his uppermost, for God is “interior intimo meo et superior summo
meo” (3.6.11).
In short, as a Christian-Platonist ascent, the Confessions’s end is
its beginning. At the literary level, the Church governs the work
from its first sentence to its last: as a prayerful dialogue with God,
the Confessions enacts the Church throughout. But the Church also
functions at the level of universal history: as God’s purpose for cre-
ating, the Church is his original intention and ultimate end for the
world and human beings. Most obviously, Augustine discovers the
meaning of his life in the Church: God’s presence is the origin and
end of his “restless heart,” leading him providentially through dis-
satisfaction with worldly success to Christian conversion. The Provi-
dence guiding Augustine’s life and his dialogue with God leads him
finally to envision the Providence guiding all human history. Augus-
tine’s life and Confessions prove, in the end, instances of the Church,
the divinely guided universal movement that begins before time
and ends beyond it.
The allegory of Book 13 thereby completes Augustine’s under-
standing of his restless heart in his very first chapter. The meditative
structure of the Confessions moves to progressively deeper, and there-
fore more universal, self-understandings. Augustine would have us
recognize deeper and deeper aspects of ourselves in this movement
and so come to see ourselves as he does, stamped in his origin, long-
ing, and end as God’s. In the Confessions, the Church proves at once
the deepest, highest, and most universal form of self-knowledge. As
the providential origin and end of the world, the Church is the
ground of creation, of Augustine’s restless heart, of his dialogue with
God, and of his Christian-Platonist ascent.
This ascent over the whole Confessions is never explicitly re-
marked. Hence, it is not merely a structure but a meditative structure,
because it can be discerned only by meditating on relations between
the parts of the work. In other words, it cannot be discerned simply
by reading the Confessions, but only by reflecting on it retrospective-
ly, as a whole. The “ascent of the soul” not only appears explicitly in
certain parts of the work, but is also enacted implicitly over the
whole. As an implied structure, it can only be discovered through
meditation. Just as Augustine could only understand his journey to
the Christian faith after it had been completed by conversion, so we
can understand the journey structure of the Confessions only by ret-
rospective meditation on the work as a whole.
Within this movement, the autobiography in Books 1–9 enacts,
in its own ways, a return to the Origin. For one thing, it tells the sto-
ry of the young Augustine’s conversion, and as a turning toward
God, a conversion is necessarily a return to the Origin. Also, the au-
tobiography moves climactically to gradually deeper, or higher, re-
turns to the Origin: the young Augustine’s experience of God as a
spiritual substance (7.9–11), his conversion to faith in the Incarna-
tion and to chastity (8.12), and his entry into the Church in his
baptism (9.6). Each of these proves a return to the Origin by the
young Augustine: in his intellect (7.9–11), in his intellect and will
(8.12), and in his whole person through the sacraments of the
Church (9.6). Book 9 also features his return to the Origin in the
meditative ascent of his “vision at Ostia” (9.10), and it concludes
with the saintly death of his mother: his earthly origin returning to
her divine Origin.
Books 1–9 also enact this return in their formal structure as a
chiasm. A simple chiastic structure may be represented schem-
atically in this way: A B C B A. This schema clearly shows a move-
ment that enacts a progression (A B C) and a return (C B A).
William A. Stephany has shown how this structure functions in Au-
gustine’s autobiography with thematic parallels between Books 1
and 9, 2 and 8, 3 and 7, and 4 and 6.12 Books 1 and 9, according
to Stephany, emphasize physical birth and spiritual birth, respec-
tively. Augustine’s narrative of his own life begins with his physical
birth (1.6.7) and ends with his spiritual rebirth in baptism (9.6.14).
Book 9 also records the baptisms—the sacramental births—of Vere-
cundus (9.3.5), Nebridius (9.3.6), Adeodatus (9.6.14), and Alypius
(9.6.14). All except the last are dead when the Confessions is written,
and Augustine envisions each as born into eternal life. Also, it may
be noted, Book 1 recurrently criticizes the boy’s classical education,
while Book 9 begins with the young convert’s decision to give up his
profession as a teacher of the classics (9.2) and to immerse himself
in the prayerful reading of Scripture (9.4).
Let one other set of parallel books illustrate the chiastic pattern
12. See William A. Stephany, “Thematic Structure in Augustine’s Confessions,”

Augustinian Studies 20 (1989): 129–42. Independently of Stephany, Frederick J.
Crosson also found chiastic structure in Books 1–9.; see his “Structure and Mean-
ing in St. Augustine’s Confessions,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophi-
cal Association 63 (1989): 84–97, and, more recently, “Book Five: The Disclosure
of Hidden Providence,” in Paffenroth and Kennedy, eds., A Reader’s Companion,
pp. 71–88.
of the autobiography. Stephany observes that Books 2 and 8 feature

events around a fruit tree in a garden. Both treat the perversity of hu-
man will after the Fall, whether inclined toward evil (Book 2) or un-
able wholly to will the good (Book 8). The two books also feature
contrasting roles for friendship: in Book 2 the young Augustine’s
companions lead him to sin, while in Book 8 the Christian friend-
ship of Simplicianus and Ponticianus leads to his conversion.
In this chiastic structure of thematic parallels, then, the later
books rework themes of their earlier ones in a higher, more convert-
ed, way. Book 8 returns to, or echoes, the themes of Book 2, but ori-
ents them toward conversion of the will, rather than its perversion
through sin. Similarly, Book 9 returns to certain themes in Book 1,
but they now appear as spiritual rebirth and Christian studies,
rather than as physical birth and classical studies. From this perspec-
tive, we can chart the curve of Books 1–9 as a spiritual descent over
its first half, followed by a spiritual ascent over its second half. Book
5 is the swing-book at the center, as the young Augustine moves
away from the Manichaean Faustus in North Africa, in its first half
(5.1–7), to Italy and the Christian Ambrose in its second (5.13–14).
The young man’s spiritual nadir may be found in the middle of this
central book: he deceives his mother, abandons her in North Africa
(5.8), and then nearly dies from fever in Rome, yet in the madness
of his heresy refuses to be baptized (5.9.16). Only Monica’s prayers
and God’s mercy save him from eternal damnation. To be sure, the
spiritual descent of Books 1–4 has certain countermovements, such
as the young Augustine’s discovery of philosophy, which inflames
him with the desire to fly away from earthly things (3.4). Similarly,
his spiritual progress over Books 6–9 is countered by his career am-
bitions (6.6) and his lustful desires (6.15). Nevertheless, the general
movement of Books 1–9 is a descent, followed by an ascent, rein-
forced by thematic parallels in the chiastic structure.
In this way, the formal, chiastic structure of parallel or returning
themes participates in the progress of the narrative as a return to the
Meditative Texture and Pilgrim Figures 77
Origin. We can now see the Trinitarian numerological structure of

the whole Confessions. The nine autobiographical books (3 3 3)
form a distinct unity within the work. They are followed by Books
10–12, three books of philosophical and exegetical ascent to themes
prior in time and progressively more interior. Book 13 contains the
allegorical paradigm for the whole Confessions, the Church as God’s
purpose for creating the world. We have here a spiraling ascent to
unity with numbers evoking the Triune God: 9, 3, and 1. Moreover,
Books 1–9 enact a return to the Origin not only as the story of Au-
gustine’s conversion but also in their formal structure as an unfold-
ing chiasm, which may be graphed as “A B C D E D C B A” for the
nine books. And since a chiasm is traditionally understood to be a
cross-structure, from the Greek letter chi (X), Augustine’s auto-
biographical return to the Origin is thereby marked with the sign of
the cross and the emblem of the name of Christ. It thereby fore-
shadows the work’s climax in the Church, the Mystical Body of
Christ.
Meditative Texture and Pilgrim Figures

The whole of the Confessions unfolds in the dynamism of the
heart restless toward God (1.1.1) because God is present in Augus-
tine’s heart interior intimo meo (3.6.11), “more inward than my in-
nermost.” The work is not merely “about” Augustine’s quest for
God: it enacts that quest in its literary form. We have examined that
literary form in its large-scale meditative structure: it unfolds as a
Christian-Platonist ascent, a return to the Origin. To grasp the unity
of the Confessions, we must also consider its small-scale meditative
texture and grasp its relation to Augustine’s ascent over the work as a
whole. In other words, the Confessions enacts a religious journey, a
pilgrimage, and we want to understand how its meditative structure
and texture work to render that journey so compellingly.
The most obvious journey in the Confessions is recorded in
Books 1–9, the young Augustine’s journey to Christian faith. Be-
cause these books tell a conversion story, a spiritual autobiography,

we do well to distinguish the young Augustine, the character in
Books 1–9, from the bishop telling his story retrospectively.13 The
difference proves especially sharp in the early books, when Augus-
tine the bishop records and often criticizes the young Augustine’s at-
titudes and acts. The young non-Christian Augustine was animated
by values and impulses that the Christian bishop finds alien to his
present self. Although historical continuity unites the young Augus-
tine and Augustine the bishop, they are divided by the death and
resurrection of conversion, at the end of Book 8, as it matures
through another decade and an ecclesiastical career. Granted, schol-
arship rarely confuses the two figures: even when both are called
“Augustine,” they are usually discriminated by context. Neverthe-
less, distinguishing the two figures with different names fosters clar-
ity of analysis.
The young Augustine is the primary pilgrim figure in Books 1–9:
journey imagery is often used for his spiritual regress and progress.
These books cover over thirty years of his life and so, as a whole,
they record a considerable development. The young Augustine’s pil-
grimage to conversion (8.12) and baptism (9.6) has excited readers
for many centuries. Nevertheless, the bishop telling this story also
proves something of a pilgrim figure. For one thing, he is not recol-
lecting in tranquility events from his past. Rather, he is making his
Confessions, inquiring before God into these events, struggling to un-
derstand them and himself. Nor does God prove a mere spectator of
this struggle, for the bishop insists that God recalls events to his
memory (2.7.15) and helps him to understand them (2.9.17). The
Confessions shows us the bishop learning about the past events that
13. John Freccero has developed this distinction for Augustine and for Dante
in several essays. See his collection, Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, esp. pp.
119–35 and 258–71. On Augustine and Dante, see also Peter S. Hawkins, “Divide
and Conquer: Augustine in the Divine Comedy,” PMLA 106 (1991): 471–93; and
Paul A. Olson, The Journey to Wisdom: Self-Education in Patristic and Medieval Liter-
ature (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), pp. 72–78.
he recalls. He may not be as dramatic a pilgrim figure as the young

Augustine, but Books 1–9 show him making a journey of under-
standing nonetheless.
Augustine’s journey of understanding in the Confessions has long
been understood by scholars, who describe the work as a prayer, a
dialogue with God. Peter Brown notes Augustine’s originality in
making prayer the literary form of so long a work and terms it a
“lively conversation.”14 Solignac also calls the work “a dialogue with
God” and, arguing that God is present throughout as “an invisible
interlocutor,” insists that “[t]hroughout these thirteen books, Au-
gustine allows himself to be taught by God” (his emphasis). G. Bouis-
sou describes the Confessions as “a dialogue in one voice” because
“only Augustine speaks—or rather, we only hear his voice—but
from his language, his feelings, the tone of his discourse, and in a
certain way the reactions of his countenance, we sense the divine
replies.”15 Augustine scholars have often recorded their understand-
ing and appreciation of this aspect of the Confessions.
But they have not understood its consequences: we must distin-
guish Augustine the narrator, the voice of the unfolding prayer, from
Augustine the author, who designed, wrote, and revised the whole
work. Although historians have often observed a disjunction be-
tween “events” in Books 1–9 and what actually happened in the
young Augustine’s life, they have neglected the disjunction between
the narrator in and the author of the Confessions. The work presents
itself as a prayer that unfolds in an ongoing present, in which Au-
gustine the narrator is guided by the spontaneities of his dialogue
with God. In other words, the work presents itself as though it were
14. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1967), pp. 166–67.
15. A. Solignac, “Introduction,” Les Confessions, Bibliotheque Augustinienne,
vol. 13 (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1962), pp. 12–13; and G. Bouissou, “Le
Style,” chapter 7, in Solignac’s “Introduction,” p. 223 (my translation). See also
Jose Oroz-Reta, “Priere et Recherche de Dieu dans les Confessions de saint Au-
gustin,” Augustinian Studies 7 (1976): 99–118.
an oral dialogue with God, recorded in its unfolding. The etymolo-

gy of its title implies as much: confessio derives from con-fari, “to
speak with.” Hence, as an oral and spontaneous prayer, it necessari-
ly presents itself as unrehearsed and unrevised. A dialogue, by defi-
nition, cannot be revised by the speakers in it, nor can a genuine di-
alogue be rehearsed. When scholars call the Confessions a “dialogue
with God,” they implicitly distinguish Augustine the narrator, pray-
ing orally in the dynamism of that dialogue, from Augustine the au-
thor, who designed, wrote, and revised it.
Augustine the narrator and Augustine the author thus parallel
Socrates and Plato in a Platonic dialogue. On the one hand, the
speaking Socrates cannot properly revise what he has spoken: he
can only add to it. He may recant, as in the Phaedrus, or rephrase or
qualify, but only by speaking further. So, too, Augustine the narrator
may correct an earlier statement on, say, the nature of time, not by
erasure and revision but only by adding to what he has said. The
narrator can and does come to new understandings in his quest for
truth, and we see this happening over and over again in the Confes-
sions. On the other hand, we assume that Plato revised his dialogues
as he perfected them, and so did Augustine the author with the dia-
logue of his Confessions. As authors, they encompassed and stood
beyond the unfolding quest for truth in their dialogues. There they
telescoped and dramatized a process of discovery which they them-
selves, as authors, had already completed.
Augustine the narrator was created by Augustine the author as
his persona, his speaking voice. In other words, Augustine the author
created his narrator as a literary, and therefore partial, representa-
tion of himself. As a literary figure, Augustine the narrator continues
to pray the Confessions every time we read it: the work unfolds in a
continuous literary present through the dynamism of his prayerful
dialogue with God, recreated by our reading. Augustine the narrator
is a pilgrim figure: he learns as he prays, for God leads his prayer in
directions that often surprise him. By definition, his consciousness
is explicit in each chapter of the work. He is, as it were, all utterance

in the present: what he does not say, he does not think, by defini-
tion. Hence, he genuinely journeys in prayer and experiences sur-
prise at new insights as the work unfolds. Augustine the author, in
contrast, stood beyond the completed whole, for he designed,
wrote, and revised it. He thereby comprehended the often surpris-
ing movements of his narrator’s unfolding prayer, and so the Confes-
sions contained no surprises for him, by the definition of “author.”
Augustine the narrator’s spontaneous discoveries were deliberately
created by Augustine the author.
Let us examine one of these. Early in Book 13, Augustine the
narrator discovers the Trinity in the opening verses of Genesis, ex-
pressing his surprise by using the word “Behold” (Ecce) three times,
once at the beginning and twice at the end of the chapter (13.5.6).
At the beginning of the chapter, he insists that he is making the dis-
covery only now, in the present, as he reads Genesis 1:2: “Behold,
there appears to me, in an obscure way, the Trinity .l.l.l.” Over fifty
chapters earlier, he found God the Father and God the Son in Gene-
sis 1:1, interpreting “In the beginning” through John 1:1 to mean
“in the Word, in the Son” (cf. 11.9.11). Yet only in Book 13 does he
discover the Holy Spirit in the creation story, in “the spirit of God”
who “was borne over the face of the waters” (Gn 1:2). He describes
the process of his discovery:
In the word “God,” who made these things, I was already understand-
ing the Father, and in the word “the beginning” the Son, in whom he
made them. And believing my God to be a Trinity, I was seeking
[quaerebam] for the Trinity in these holy words and, behold, your
“spirit was borne over the face of the waters.” Behold, the Trinity my
God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, creator of the whole creation.
(13.5.6)
Augustine the narrator tells us unambiguously that when he found

God the Father and God the Son in Genesis 1:1 (11.9.11), he did not
think ahead, or read ahead, to “the spirit of God” in the following
verse until over fifty chapters later, even though he “was seeking”
(quaerebam) the Trinity in the creation story. And when he finds “the
spirit” there in Book 13, he registers his surprise with three “Be-
hold’s.”
We know that the historical Augustine did not feel this surprise
because he had commented on Genesis earlier in his career and
found the Trinity in its first two verses. In his unfinished literal com-
mentary on Genesis, composed around 391, he also interpreted “In
the beginning” as “In the Son” from “God” the Father, and recog-
nized that “the Spirit of God” could be understood as the Holy Spir-
it, thus indicating the Trinity.16 The historical Augustine, the author
of the Confessions, knew this before he wrote Books 11–13, yet Au-
gustine the narrator experiences surprise and joy when he discovers
the Trinity in Genesis. To make this disjunction intelligible, we need
the distinction between author and narrator.
Evidently, Augustine the author dramatized, through the voice
of his narrator, a process of search and discovery that he had already
completed. He dramatized it in a particular way, through a con-
trived order, to accomplish certain ends, and one of these is to in-
volve the reader in the drama of Augustine the narrator’s quest for
truth in reading the Scriptures. To be sure, Augustine the author
made these discoveries himself, in and through his life of prayer.
That he made them while he composed the Confessions, in precise-
ly the way Augustine the narrator does, we have no reason to be-
lieve.
A similar instance may be found near the beginning of Book 2.
The narrator complains that, when the adolescent Augustine was
“spilt, scattered and boiled dry in [his] fornications,” God was silent
16. De Genesi ad litteram, imperfectus liber, in Sancti Aurelii Augustini Opera,

edited by the Benedictine monks of the monastery of Saint Maurus, Primo editio
Neapolitana (Naples, 1854), vol. 3: 3.6 (column 111) for the Father and the Son,
4.16 (column 115) for the Spirit and the Trinity, active in the creation of the
world.
(2.2.2). In the following chapter, he realizes that this accusation was

incorrect: in truth, God was speaking to him through his mother
(2.3.7). Here is an instance of the narrator’s making a discovery in
the course of his unfolding dialogue with God: understanding that
his earlier accusation against God was wrong, he accuses himself in-
stead (“Wretch that I am”; 2.3.7). At the time the historical Augus-
tine wrote this, he had been a self-examining Christian for over a
decade. I cannot believe that he made this discovery about his ado-
lescent “fornications” only when he composed Book 2. Rather, Au-
gustine the author used his narrator to dramatize a discovery he had
made some years earlier.
We may rightfully assume that the historical Augustine made
discoveries as he composed the Confessions, as writers normally do
when they work. But since we do not have his working papers, we
cannot know precisely what these discoveries were or the stages
in which he made them. We do know, however, what Augustine
the narrator discovers and how he does so. But we cannot know
whether the historical Augustine learned these things while he com-
posed the Confessions or before. Nor can we be sure whether he
discovered them in precisely the same stages as Augustine the narra-
tor. It would be historically naïve to equate Augustine the nar-
rator simpliciter with the historical Augustine, the author of the Con-
fessions. We can be sure, however, that Augustine created his narrator
as a literary version of himself, and this narrator’s process of discov-
ery through prayer imitates what Augustine practiced over many
years.
Augustine the narrator should be distinguished, but not separat-
ed, from Augustine the author. Augustine the author created this
narrator partly to state his views on certain things, partly as an ex-
ample of prayerful self-examination and the quest for truth. We al-
ways know what Augustine the narrator is thinking, because he is a
function of what the work is saying at any moment: the narrator’s
thoughts are wholly explicit, by definition. Augustine the author, by
definition, comprehended the total movement of his narrator’s

thinking: he thereby implied understandings beyond what the nar-
rator explicitly says. One such understanding I have already set
forth: the Confessions as a whole unfolds as a Christian-Platonist as-
cent, a return to the Origin. Scholars have tended to miss this struc-
ture because they recognize only one Augustine in the work, and so
they identify the narrator’s voice in the work with Augustine the au-
thor’s understanding. They thereby miss larger structures, and the
understandings they imply.
Since this distinction is unfamiliar in Augustine studies, let us
see how it is warranted by the opening of the Confessions. I ask you
to imagine yourself in the situation of one of Augustine’s first read-
ers. You do not have your present familiarity with the work, nor
does your text have the aids often supplied by editors and transla-
tors: no book titles, no chapter titles, no page headings. Hence,
nothing advises you of the content of what you are reading except
what the text itself says. You are not given a table of contents advis-
ing you, for example, that Book 1 will concern Augustine’s child-
hood or that Book 11 will consider “time,” nor do you know these
things from prior readings. Moreover, you live in an oral culture and
you are reading the work aloud. Consider, then, how the Confessions
presents itself, especially the verb tenses that its “I” uses to charac-
terize his activity:
You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised: great is your power
and to your wisdom there is no limit. And a human being [homo],
some portion of your creation, wishes to praise you, a human being
bearing within himself testimony to his sin and testimony that you re-
sist the proud. You rouse us so that it delights us to praise you, be-
cause you have made us toward yourself and our heart is restless until
it rests in you. Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which is first,
to call upon [invocare] you or to praise you, and also which is first, to
know you or to call upon you. But does one who does not know you
call upon you? For one who does not know you might call upon an-
other, instead of you. Or must you be called upon so that you may be
known? .l.l. May I seek you, Lord, calling upon you [invocans te], and may
I call upon you [invocem te] believing in you, for you have been preached
to us. Lord, my faith calls upon you [invocat te], which you have given to
me .l.l.l. (1.1.1; my emphasis)
The work begins with a voice using a quotation from the Psalms
to address God in the present tense. This is entirely traditional, as is
using the present tense to describe the relationship between hu-
mankind and God. But then a first-person speaker appears: “Grant
me, Lord, to know and understand.” He presents himself as a seeker,
for he prays “to know and understand.” He asks God questions and
works his way toward answers. He does not know what he thinks,
and that is why he is praying his way through questions toward an-
swers. We hear him thinking aloud in prayer, all the more so when
we read the passage aloud. When he presents his activity in the first
person, he characterizes himself as a speaker: he uses forms of invo-
care, “to call upon,” three times. His emphatic use of invocare makes
explicit what he has been doing from the very first sentence: calling
upon God.
All this activity is taking place “now,” in the present. The text
does not offer us understandings already arrived at, in the manner
of a treatise. Rather, it gives us a man speaking “now,” praying for
God’s guidance as he prays his questions and his tentative answers.
We have no idea what he will go on to talk about, because he does
not project a subject or a theme. At no point in the opening chapters
does he ever say that he will describe his childhood, any more than
he projects “the pear theft” at the beginning of Book 2. This voice
does not know very well what he will say further on, and the reason
is that he is engaged in a dialogue with God. The unfolding of the
Confessions emerges in the dynamism of the speaker’s responsive-
ness to God’s grace. It presents itself as an oral and spontaneous
prayer.
Contrast the opening of On Christian Doctrine, which Augustine
began about the same time as the Confessions: “There are two things
necessary to the treatment of the Scriptures: a way of discovering

those things which are to be understood, and a way of teaching
what we have learned. We shall speak first of discovery and second
of teaching” (1.1.1).17 This person’s voice is not praying to God, but
speaking to readers in the third person. He projects an intention for
the work. He is not in the process of discovering what he thinks, like
the voice of the Confessions. He is not wondering aloud, asking ques-
tions, or groping toward answers. Rather, he has arrived at his in-
sights already and he intends to communicate them. Moreover, he
has a plan for doing so: he “will speak first of discovery and second
of teaching.” He tells us directly that he knows where the work is go-
ing. He also communicates this by declaring distinctions and then
explaining them, both here and in the following chapters. “All doc-
trine concerns either things or signs, but things are learned by signs”
(1.2.2); “Some things are to be enjoyed, others to be used, and there
are others to be enjoyed and used” (1.3.3). The voice of the Confes-
sions, in contrast, explores distinctions by wondering aloud about
them with questions and tentative answers. In short, Book 1 of On
Christian Doctrine present itself as a finished work, written and re-
vised according to intentions decided by the author beforehand,
while the Confessions presents itself as an oral and spontaneous
prayer, in the process of being composed. Even though we know
that Augustine abandoned the On Christian Doctrine for almost
three decades after composing paragraph 35 in Book 3, the authori-
al voice at its beginning projects the plan of a coherent work. The
Confessions, in contrast, projects no such plan, because Augustine
the narrator—not Augustine the author—does not have one. Rather,
he is engaged in an oral prayer, a dialogue with God, and like any
dialogue, it does not unfold according to a plan.
To be sure, Augustine the narrator’s prayer is recorded in writing.
17. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, translated with an Introduction by D.

W. Robertson, Jr. (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs Merrill, 1958).
Nevertheless, this record is presented as spoken by the writer and

heard by the reader “now,” in the present tense of its utterance.
Augustine the narrator treats this issue most extensively at the be-
ginning of Book 10, where he describes his work as “confession
before you in my heart, yet in my pen [stilo] before many witnesses”
(10.1.1). The writing, however, records what “I speak” (loquor;
10.1.1): “I do not say [dico] anything to men that you have not heard
from me” (10.2.3; my emphasis). Concomitantly, his readers are
those who “hear my confessions” (audiant confessiones meas; 10.3.5).
They hear, not only because late antique readers read aloud, but
also because confessio implies “speaking” from its Latin root, fari.
Granted, it was a convention in Augustine’s day that a writer
“speaks” to his audience, and the convention endures. But the Con-
fessions’s being recorded in writing does not compromise the oral
and spontaneous character of its narrator’s dialogue with God. Un-
like Augustine in On Christian Doctrine, the narrator in the Confes-
sions does not project a subject or declare what he is going to treat:
no book contains a treatise-style prospectus introducing its argu-
ment. At best, one finds a suggestive promise, as at the beginning of
Book 8: “‘You have broken my chains .l.l.l.’ I will tell how you broke
them” (8.1.1).
For the most part, the opening of each book tells us little or
nothing about what will come. In Book 11, for example, Augustine
the narrator says that he will meditate on Scripture (11.2.3), and he
begins with the first verse of Genesis (11.3.5). But he does not say
that he will reflect on “time,” as he winds up doing for half the
book, because he does not know that he will do so. The question
“What is time?” (11.14) emerges through the dynamism of his dia-
logue with God. The narrator’s consciousness, let us recall, is explic-
it in his utterance, by definition. What he does not say, he does not
think, and he does not think about “What is time?” in Book 11 be-
fore chapter 14. Moreover, when he does begin to think about time,
he does not yet know the answer he will eventually arrive at: he
prays his way through preliminary answers before his dialogue with
God brings him to a satisfactory conclusion (11.28). Augustine the
author, however, comprehended this whole movement, by defini-
tion: he knew the narrator’s final position, and he dramatized the
narrator’s prayerful progress to it.
The Confessions dramatizes its “spontaneity” in another way. Au-
gustine the narrator insists that he is not in complete control of his
utterance because God is active in its unfolding. The narrator forgot
about his adolescent pear theft, yet God “recalls these things to my
memory” (2.7.15). Because “the living remembrance [viva recordatio]
of [his] soul is before [God]” (2.9.17), his recollection of his past
does not rely on his merely human power of memory. God’s grace,
he insists, aids and guides him. He affirms that God leads his prayer
in surprising directions. After recalling his baptism in Book 9
(9.6.14), he digresses into mentioning a series of events in Milan
(9.7.15–16), before he notices the digression and prays, “From
when and to what place have you led my remembrance, so that I
should confess also these great deeds to you, which I had passed
over in forgetfulness?” (9.7.16; my emphasis). Augustine the narra-
tor was not intending to record these “great deeds,” and he thought
he had forgotten them, but God led his memory to record them.
These deeds did not involve the young Augustine directly, yet God’s
guidance has made them part of the narrator’s Confessions.
Here what seems a digression to Augustine the narrator proves a
permanent part of his book. He acknowledges that he is not in full
control of his Confessions, because the work unfolds as a dialogue
with God and God sometimes guides it beyond his ken. The work
thereby presents itself as the unrevised record of an oral prayer—un-
revised because oral utterance is unrevisable. The seeming digres-
sion is not excised but remains in the work, though the work explic-
itly records it as a digression. In this way, Augustine the author has
reminded us that the Confessions unfolds as a dialogue with two
partners, even though it proves a “dialogue in one voice.” God’s
grace always aids the narrator’s prayer and sometimes leads it in sur-
prising directions. We are surprised by the work’s unfolding because
he is surprised by it: “Why do I speak of these things? Now is the
time, not to put questions, but to make confession to you” (4.6.11).
Augustine the narrator is not in complete control of what he is say-
ing because he is in dialogue with God. His digressions remain in
the record of the dialogue precisely because the work presents itself
as the unrevised record of the dialogue’s spontaneous unfolding.
This self-presentation, to be sure, is a kind of fiction, orchestrated by
Augustine the author and perfected by revision.
Distinguishing the historical Augustine, the author of the Confes-
sions as a completed whole, from Augustine the narrator, the praying
voice in the work, enables us to appreciate more fully its meditative
texture, the dynamism of its dialogue with God. This meditative tex-
ture is filled with surprises for the reader because it is full of surpris-
es for Augustine the narrator, praying in an ongoing present. The en-
tire work, from its first sentence to its last, uses the present tense for
the narrator’s activity as he prays. Open it to any page: the narrator
is praying “now,” in a literary present, remembering his past life
“now,” unfolding his quest for truth “now,” as we read. The Confes-
sions presents itself as the record of Augustine the narrator’s oral
prayer, and all its surprises emerge from the dynamism of his dia-
logue with God. Augustine the author, however, was in full control
of the work, by definition; because he stood beyond the completed
whole, as its composer and reviser, it contained no surprises for
him.
In sum, then, the Confessions presents itself as Augustine the nar-
rator’s oral prayer, recorded in writing. As an oral prayer, the work
presents itself as unrevised, because unrevisable, and as unfolding
“now” in its original order, from Book 1, chapter 1, through Book
13, chapter 38. The order of our reading reenacts the original order
of Augustine the narrator’s dialogue with God. This narrator is a lit-
erary figure, and he continues to exist in the literary present of our
reading: every time we read the work, we are reenacting his oral
prayer. Augustine the author, in contrast, was a historical person. He
designed and revised the Confessions so as to dramatize effectively
his narrator’s oral dialogue with God. Augustine the author deliber-
ately created the spontaneous discoveries that his narrator makes
through that dialogue. Augustine the narrator’s sudden insights,
musing perplexities, digressions, and lack of plan in his Confessions
may be felt as spontaneous defects, but they were all dramatic ef-
fects designed by Augustine the author. We always know what Au-
gustine the narrator is thinking at any point in his unfolding prayer
because his thoughts are explicit in his words, by definition. We
never hear directly the full mind of Augustine the author in the Con-
fessions because he stood beyond the work as a completed whole, by
definition. What the narrator says may well prove an index to Au-
gustine the author’s views on a subject, especially when the narrator
arrives at a resounding conclusion to an inquiry, as he does with
time (11.28). Nevertheless, the mind of Augustine the author com-
prehended the Confessions as a whole and thereby exceeded what
Augustine the narrator says in the work. Augustine the narrator, for
example, never recognizes that his Confessions unfolds as a return
to the Origin, even though Augustine the author designed it as a
Christian-Platonist ascent.
What do we gain from making this distinction? For one thing, it
enables us to hold together the seeming planlessness of the Confes-
sions with its overarching plan as a return to the Origin. Augustine
the narrator does not have a plan for his prayerful dialogue with
God, for if he did, it would not be a dialogue. At the same time, the
whole work clearly unfolds as a Christian-Platonist ascent, designed
by Augustine the author. On the one hand, Augustine the narrator
does not know where his Confessions is going, for it emerges through
the dynamism of his interaction with God. Hence, he makes errors
and corrects them, wanders into digressions, muses over perplexi-
ties, is led to sudden insights, and so on. The dynamism of his dia-
logue with God is a drama of the soul. The Confessions appeals to

readers because we are caught up into Augustine the narrator’s dra-
ma of self-examination and quest and discovery, with all its unfore-
seen developments and surprising turns. On the other hand, this
drama has clearly been dramatized by Augustine the author. He
composed it and revised it, orchestrating its movements to render
his narrator’s quest for truth as compelling as possible. He also
planned its course: the drama of the soul, in the small scale, unfolds
as the ascent of the soul, in the large.
When scholars recognize only one Augustine in the Confessions,
the drama of the narrator’s soul tends to be slighted, and his ascent
over the whole is missed. On the one hand, historians seeking the
facts of Augustine’s life interrogate the events in Books 1–9, and the
drama of the narrator’s soul is irrelevant to their search. Similarly,
philosophers and theologians seeking Augustine’s views on some
topic tend to reduce the narrator’s quest to arguments for those
views. They may appreciate the drama of his quest for truth, but
they tend to treat it as philosophically irrelevant in itself. For them,
the meditative wandering of Augustine the narrator’s dialogue with
God becomes merely a literary way of working through arguments.
On the other hand, all these scholars limit the historical Augustine’s
views in the work to what it states explicitly. Hence, they do not rec-
ognize the design of the whole as a Christian-Platonist ascent be-
cause the work never declares itself as one. When scholars recognize
only one Augustine in the Confessions, they identify his achievement
with that of Augustine the narrator and thereby miss important as-
pects of the work.
Distinguishing Augustine the narrator from Augustine the au-
thor, then, may renew our sense of the work’s self-presentation as a
prayer. The Confessions does not present itself as merely the historical
Augustine’s autobiography, in the first person, plus his treatment of
certain philosophical and theological topics, in the third person.
Rather, from its first sentence to its last, it unfolds as Augustine the
narrator’s prayer. The whole work is spoken attentively to God, in

the first and second persons. This is an astonishing literary strategy
for so long a work, and it has been little explored, perhaps because it
has so rarely been imitated by later writers, unlike the autobiography
in Books 1–9. The work is not merely framed by prayers or punctuat-
ed intermittently by them: every sentence in the work is addressed to
God, even the narrative ones. Properly speaking, the “autobiogra-
phy” is not the historical Augustine’s retelling of his journey to con-
version. Rather, it presents itself as the narrator’s self-examination in
an oral prayer that is guided by God to surprising memories and un-
derstandings. Similarly, Augustine the narrator’s philosophical and
theological reflections arise through the dynamism of his dialogue
with God, who illuminates his quest for truth. In other words, when
we speak of the Confessions as a work of autobiography and philoso-
phy, we miss the originality of its self-presentation. Properly speak-
ing, and from first to last, the Confessions presents itself as a prayer,
and this prayer is led by God into what we call “autobiography” and
“philosophy.”
Moreover, every reader of the Confessions must, of necessity, pray
its prayer. There is simply no other way to read it. Every reader im-
personates the narrator’s “I” in his dialogue with God. Indeed, every
reader necessarily becomes Augustine the narrator making his Con-
fessions. Our reading inevitably recreates the narrator’s dialogue with
God in its original unfolding. Hence, readers do not merely hear
about Augustine’s Christianity in the work but rather speak it par-
ticipatively, whether they agree with it or not. It is difficult to gauge
the persuasive effect this may have on a reader, but over the course
of the work it would seem to be considerable.
With this renewed sense of the work as a prayer comes a livelier
awareness of the Confessions as a pilgrimage, a journey of faith. We
follow more attentively the drama of Augustine the narrator’s quest
for truth in dialogue with God. When we seek the historical Augus-
tine’s views in the work, we tend to read past its dramatic unfolding
as we look for propositional conclusions and arguments. But when

we distinguish the historical Augustine from his narrator, we gain
two things. First, we can give full weight to the Confessions’s insis-
tence that the narrator is being guided by God in his prayer. Second,
we can see that the whole work does unfold according to a plan, de-
signed by Augustine the author and beyond his narrator’s ken.
Hence, the Confessions unfolds as Augustine the narrator’s pilgrim-
age, his return to the Origin. It is not a journey in space, but a jour-
ney of soul, and it does arrive at a holy place: his vision of the
Church as God’s purpose in creation. Above all, the Confessions pres-
ents this journey as being guided by God. Augustine the narrator
does not know where his prayer is going, according to the fiction of
its self-presentation. But God does, and he guides it on a Christian-
Platonist ascent.
This is the premise of the Confessions’s self-presentation: its
prayerful unfolding is guided by God as a return to the Origin, be-
yond the ken of Augustine the narrator. In other words, according to
this premise, God plans the structure of the Confessions, for it un-
folds according to a providential order completely unforeseen by
the praying voice. There is a certain fictionality in this premise: God
is the author of the work’s coherence. Augustine the narrator is pray-
ing the words in his unplanned dialogue with God, yet God guides
them according to his plan: thematic parallels in the chiastic struc-
ture of Books 1–9 and the Christian-Platonist ascent over the whole.
According to this premise, there is only one Augustine in the
work, Augustine the narrator, for Augustine the author does not ex-
ist. Naturally, I treat this premise critically. Although the Confessions
presents itself as a spontaneous oral prayer, it was designed and re-
vised by its author, the historical Augustine. Nonetheless, I acknowl-
edge a truth in this fictional premise, for without God’s grace and
guidance Augustine the author could not have conceived and con-
structed the Confessions. The work’s self-presentation as a sponta-
neous and therefore unrevised oral prayer, unfolding providentially
as a return to the Origin, is a fiction. Augustine the author revised

it to heighten our sense of its spontaneity and he, not God, designed
its pattern of ascent. At the same time, this fiction has its truth.
Augustine would have attributed all his inspirations in the Confes-
sions to God’s grace, and he probably arrived at them just as his nar-
rator does, through prayer. Moreover, he designed the work’s self-
presentation to imitate the providential design revealed in the Bible:
all things come forth from (exitus) God and return (reditus) to their
Origin.
Once we recognize that the Confessions presents itself as provi-
dentially guided, we can discern the parallel between the two pil-
grim figures, the young Augustine, in Books 1–9, and Augustine the
narrator. Just as God led the young Augustine, despite all his moral
wanderings, on a journey to the Church, so does He guide Augus-
tine the narrator, despite all his digressions, on a return to the Ori-
gin, culminating in an allegorical vision of the Church in Genesis 1.
In other words, just as the young Augustine’s life revealed God’s
providential guidance, so does the unfolding of the Confessions: its
large-scale structure as a return to the Origin emerges not from Au-
gustine the narrator’s plan, but through Providence leading it to ful-
fillment.
In short, the Confessions does not merely tell a story about God’s
providential grace in the young Augustine’s life. Rather, its literary
form enacts, moment by moment, the dialectic between human
freedom and divine grace in its unfolding prayer. Augustine the nar-
rator does not know where his prayer is going, but its course
emerges from the dynamism of his dialogue with God and so its
course proves providential. The work’s meditative textures feature
the narrator’s human freedom, with all its vagaries and varieties of
style and mood. At the same time, the narrator is always turned to
God in prayer and he insists that God is guiding his prayer. As a dia-
logue with God, the Confessions unites speech about God with the
action of God. The narrator gives evidence of divine grace in his
sudden illuminations, in thanksgivings for guidance, and so on. In

this way, the work does what it says, is what it talks about. A treatise,
featuring its author’s control of his argument, can analyze the di-
alectic between freedom and grace, but cannot embody it. Only the
meditative texture of a spontaneously unfolding dialogue with God
can embody and enact this dialectic. The Confessions thereby unites
indissolubly logos and ergon, content and form.18
As we have seen, the providential course of the Confessions as a
whole follows a Christian-Platonist ascent and culminates in an al-
legorical discourse about the Church as God’s purpose in creation.
Like every return to the Origin, its end reveals its beginning. Augus-
tine the narrator has been turning to his Origin at every point in the
work, because he has been praying its every sentence. Hence, be-
cause he turns to his Origin at every point in the work, God guides
his Confessions as a return to the Origin over the whole. The dy-
namism of its meditative texture as a dialogue with God generates
its meditative structure as a Christian-Platonist ascent. Here again
form and content are indissolubly united.
We know how important “unity” was for Augustine, and yet
scholars have often thought that the Confessions lacks it. Their reluc-
tance to see an ascent pattern in the Confessions may be illuminated
by comparing the work to Bonaventure’s Itinerarium Mentis in Deum.
The Itinerarium is a classic Christian-Platonist ascent, for it high-
lights this structural pattern in its title and in its unfolding. It does
so because Bonaventure is not making the ascent, but directing it.
He has already made the journey and has provided a map for oth-
ers—itinerarium means both “journey” and “map.” Because he does
not present himself as making the journey in the process of writing
the work, there is no “Bonaventure the narrator” to be distinguished
18. See Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Logos and Ergon in Plato’s in Plato’s Lysis,” in
his collection of essays, Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Pla-
to, translated with an Introduction by P. Christopher Smith (New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press, 1980), pp. 1–20.
from “Bonaventure the author” or from “the historical Bonaven-

ture.” There is only one Bonaventure here, and he stands apart from
the journey he directs as the author of this map. He presents materi-
al that is cogently ordered because already mastered. In his Pro-
logue, he projects the six stages of the forthcoming ascent (para-
graph 3) and urges his reader to bring certain attitudes to it
(paragraph 4). Its six stages are clearly marked in six chapters. The
first section in most chapters reviews part or all of the ascent so far.
Certain Christian images are used to feature the patterns in the
work: the six wings of the seraph, the six days of creation, the ark in
the Holy of Holies (chapters 5–7), and so on. Bonaventure’s Itiner-
arium thereby highlights its governing patterns.
Contrast the Confessions. It does not feature so explicitly the pat-
terns governing its ascent. Its stages are not so obvious as in the Itin-
erarium. And the reason for this should by now be obvious: the Con-
fessions is so much longer, and its ascent much more diffuse, because
Augustine the narrator is making it as he prays his way along.
Bonaventure has made the ascent, and so he lays out a plan for it.
Augustine the narrator has not made it, and so he has no plan. He is
praying his Confessions “now” as we read, and God is gradually lead-
ing him on an ascent, as He gradually led the errant young Augus-
tine to conversion, and patiently guides humankind to salvation
through his Church. The narrator has no notion that he is making
an ascent over the whole work, and we know that he does not know
it because his consciousness is wholly explicit in his praying voice.
Bonaventure was the author of an Itinerarium, a map. The Confes-
sions, however, is less a map than a territory, not an abbreviated
guide to an ascent but a detailed record of the ascending journey it-
self as it is being made. The historical Augustine wrote it then, A.D.
397–400, but he fashioned it so that Augustine the narrator is al-
ways making the ascent now, whenever anyone takes up the book
and reads it.
Hence, the pattern of the Christian-Platonist ascent in the Con-
Paradigm at the Climax 97
fessions is not explicit, for Augustine the narrator does not plan it,
and we hear only his voice. The work presents its ascent pattern as
emerging through the narrator’s dialogue with God, in the dialectic
between human freedom and divine grace. Hence, it emerges slowly
and, as we are meant to understand, providentially. Scholars who
prefer a deliberately featured pattern, with clearly marked stages,
will not find it in there. If a scholar sets the bar for a Christian-
Platonist ascent at Bonaventure’s Itinerarium or Dante’s Commedia,
the Confessions will fall below it, and its ascent pattern will be invisi-
ble or negligible.
In order to grasp both the ascent plan governing the Confessions
and its seeming planlessness, we must distinguish Augustine the au-
thor from his narrator. The Confessions thereby mimes human expe-
rience as Christians understand it: the seeming planlessness in its
small-scale movements is taken up into God’s providential structure
over the whole. Although human lives and history seem fraught
with errors and accidents, Christians affirm that these vagaries are
part of God’s plan for his creatures. The Confessions enacts and em-
bodies this dialectic: the local vagaries of the narrator’s prayer are
subsumed into its large-scale structure as a return to the Origin. If
we think there is only “one Augustine” in the work, we cannot see
this structure, because Augustine the narrator never remarks on it. In
order to grasp the unity of the Confessions and Augustine’s achieve-
ment in designing it, we must distinguish what its narrator says
from what its author accomplished. Once we have distinguished
them, we can see the Confessions’s unity of texture and structure,
planlessness and plan, in the narrator’s turning to God at every mo-
ment and his return to the Origin enacted over the whole.
Paradigm at the Climax: Book 13

We have been exploring Augustine’s extraordinary ambition in
the literary form of the Confessions. Its meditative texture and medi-
tative structure work together to mime the dialectic of salvation his-
tory, of human freedom and divine grace, in its process and goal,
our return to the Origin. For Augustine, the Church is the supreme
embodiment of that process and goal. As we have seen, he considers
the Church to be God’s purpose in creating the universe (13.34.49).
In that sense, the Church proves a more universal being than the
universe itself. Augustine’s allegory on Genesis 1 as the creation of
the Church finds all of creation comprehended in the Church as
God’s universal saving will. In this understanding, the Church pre-
cedes the universe and endures beyond its consummation. Hence,
the Church not only exhorts humankind to return to the Origin but
also embodies and enacts that movement from time to eternity.
Because the allegory of the Church stands as the climax of the
narrator’s ascent, it offers the most comprehensive view of the Con-
fessions within the work. The Church, as the providential origin and
end of the world, is the ground of creation. Hence, it proves also the
ground of the Confessions in both its meditative texture, as a dialogue
with God, and its meditative structure, as a Christian-Platonist as-
cent. In other words, Augustine’s allegory on the Church in Book 13
reveals the paradigm for the Confessions as a whole. In this section, I
want to show how it represents the height of the narrator’s dialogue
with God and provides the structures governing the work.19
The allegorical climax of the Confessions has not received the
attention it deserves, perhaps because it is so difficult to under-
stand. Yet this difficulty gives it a special status within the work: it
presents itself as divinely inspired. Several different aspects mark
these twenty-seven chapters (13.12–38) as “divinely inspired”—that
is, as the product of an influx of grace carrying Augustine the narra-
tor beyond his normal powers. One of these is the radical change in
reflecting on the Trinity, which we looked at in Chapter 1. In chap-
ter 11, Augustine the narrator associates the Father with being, the
Son with knowing, and the Holy Spirit with willing. He wonders
19. This section abbreviates Robert McMahon, Augustine’s Prayerful Ascent,

pp. 22–116.
whether God is a Trinity because of these three acts, or whether each

Person possesses all three acts. He concludes, “Who could conceive
such things easily? .l.l. Who could pronounce on them rashly in any
way?” (13.11.12). Yet just five chapters later, the narrator pro-
nounces on these issues in the most authoritative fashion: “Your be-
ing knows and wills immutably, your knowledge is and wills im-
mutably, and your will is and knows immutably” (13.16.19). He
does not inquire into it, pray over it, argue for it, or hesitate in any
way. When we consider how laboriously he earlier inquired into
memory and time, this sublime assurance is astonishing. He simply
pronounces truth, and on the loftiest mystery of his faith! This radi-
cal change from chapter 11 to chapter 16 implies that Augustine the
narrator is suddenly possessed by the truth, inspired by God.
Other indexes of his inspiration include its suddenly new style,
pace, and subject. The style is difficult, in part because it is so crowd-
ed with quotations from Scripture. The Skutella-Verheijen edition of
the Confessions cites 297 biblical references for the allegory as a
whole, chapters 12–38. All of Book 12, with 32 chapters, has only
169, and the 31 chapters of Book 11 only 120. This astonishing in-
crease is especially marked within Book 13: chapters 1–11 have 66
biblical references, while chapters 12–27 have 267. Insofar as the
number of biblical references proves an index of Augustine the nar-
rator’s divine inspiration, it would seem that he experiences a pow-
erful influx of grace over the first half of his allegory, which gradual-
ly tapers off toward the end.
Yet the number and frequency of biblical references indicate
only one aspect of the difficult new style. It fuses passages from the
Old and New Testaments, often juxtaposing them with no explicit
connection. It thereby contains leaps of thought, for Augustine the
narrator is associating ideas with astonishing rapidity. A reader
needs to devote patient and sustained attention to the text in order
to reconstruct its implied allegorical logic. The density and difficulty
of the new style, so crowded with the inspirations of Scripture, sug-
gest that the narrator is suddenly inspired.
The pace of his allegorical exposition is also new, much more

rapid than that in Books 11–12. Augustine the narrator has been re-
flecting on Genesis 1 for 72 chapters, since Book 11, chapter 3, and
his progress has been quite slow, as he observes at the end of Book
12 (12.32.43). In the 72 chapters before the allegory (11.3–13.11),
he has progressed only to Genesis 1:2a. But when he begins his alle-
gorical interpretation, he begins all over again, with the first verse of
Genesis, and he moves much more quickly. In twenty-seven chap-
ters, he covers the seven days of creation, thirty-four verses (Gn
1:1–2:3).
Actually, he covers much more than that. Augustine the narrator
begins with the intention to explore all of Scripture, “from the very
beginning, in which you made heaven and earth, up to the endless
kingdom with you in your holy city” (11.2.3). Such an exposition
would work from Genesis 1:1, through all of the Old and New Testa-
ments, up to the “heavenly Jerusalem” in Revelation 21–22.20 At the
end of Book 12, however, he realizes that he must revise his inten-
tion, because his exposition has proceeded so slowly so far. He prays
to confess more briefly to God, asking him to inspire “something
single, true, certain, and good” (12.32.43) to be found in Scripture.
That prayer is fulfilled when God inspires his allegorical exposition
of Genesis, for there the narrator finds the Church, “something sin-
gle, true, certain, and good.”
Moreover, this new subject for his exposition embraces all of
Scripture, and so does the allegory itself. For Augustine, the Church
is the custodian of divine revelation: she provides “the rule of faith”
for the right understanding of the divine word. In that sense, the
Church comprehends all of Scripture. Also, Augustine’s allegory on
20. Pierre Courcelle argued this in his Recherches sur les “Confessions” de saint
Augustin, p. 23. John O’Meara thought that Augustine could not have meant
something so ambitious, in The Young Augustine, pp. 14–17. I use the distinction
between Augustine the narrator and Augustine the author to resolve this debate
in Augustine’s Prayerful Ascent, pp. 18–21.
the creation of the Church finds “all of Scripture” in its very first
chapter. The allegory progresses from the beginning of Genesis
(13.12) to the sabbath of eternal life (13.35–38) envisioned in the
final chapters of the Bible, and it unites quotations from the Old
and New Testaments to “reveal” the creation of the Church implied
in Genesis 1. Hence, the allegory fulfills the narrator’s original desire
to consider all of Scripture, “from the very beginning, in which you
made heaven and earth, up to the endless kingdom with you in
your holy city” (11.2.3). Augustine the narrator’s dialogue with God
culminates in inspired allegory, fulfilling his earlier prayers (11.2.3,
12.32.43) in ways completely unforeseen by him. Augustine the au-
thor designed it that way.
The scope of this allegory has long been understood. Over forty
years ago, Solignac found there “the totality of the creation in its ma-
terial reality and in its spiritual signification, that is to say, as a figure
of the Church and the spiritual Universe of the saints” (his empha-
sis). This totality embraces not only the range of being, visible and
invisible, but also the movement of Scripture from Creation to
Apocalypse. Solignac italicized the following formulation: “The cycle
of time is, in that way, dialectically perfected: time is opened for us out of
eternity by the fiat of the Creator and it is closed in the eternity of the heav-
enly rest, without ceasing to be governed by the transcendence of the divine
eternity.”21 Augustine’s allegory on the Church embraces the totality
of being because it embraces the totality of Scripture in its style, sub-
ject, and direction. The allegory encompasses the sweep and direc-
tion of all time, which proceeds from God’s eternity and returns
to it.
In other words, Augustine’s allegory on the Church is structured
as a return to the Origin, because the Bible as a whole is structured
in that way, and the Confessions’s meditative structure as a return to
the Origin proves fundamentally ecclesial. “Return to the Origin”
21. A. Solignac, “Introduction,” pp. 23–24; my translation.

may have a Neoplatonist ring to it, but for Augustine it was a pro-
foundly biblical and ecclesial reality. Within the Confessions, he
treated Neoplatonism as an incomplete Christianity, for the Bible
encompasses and surpasses the truths taught in “the books of the
Neoplatonists” (7.9), and the Church provides a sure way for re-
turning to the Origin, through Christ, “the way, the truth, and the
life” (Jn 14:6; Conf. 7.18–21). Hence, Augustine would have us un-
derstand that the meditative structure of the Confessions is grounded
in the Church in the sense of Book 13: God’s intention and goal for
creation. The Church, in this understanding, is the fullest earthly
embodiment of return to the Origin, and the Neoplatonist return
would thereby prove derivative and partial, albeit instructive.
Augustine’s allegory on the Church ends the Confessions because
the Church is its ground from the beginning: a return to the Origin,
by definition, ends with its Beginning. Everything in the narrator’s
ascent converges at this peak. His dialogue with God, an aspect of
the Church, is providentially guided on a return to the Origin, pre-
eminently enacted by the Church, the only institution divinely in-
spired. Moreover, at this height of the narrator’s ascent he experi-
ences the heightening of his dialogue with God by being divinely
inspired. His style is suddenly inspired to expound spiritually, or al-
legorically, a new subject in Genesis 1, God’s creation of his divinely
inspired Church, which contains “all of Scripture” in its master
movement of return to the Origin. To be sure, this allegory is not the
only passage presenting itself as “inspired,” for Augustine the narra-
tor has other moments of sudden illumination, for which he gives
thanks and praise. But it is the most sustained instance of divine in-
spiration within the Confessions. A return to the Origin, by defini-
tion, ends with its true beginning. The style and subject of Augus-
tine’s allegory heighten and epitomize the Confessions’s meditative
texture and meditative structure.
In these ways, the allegory in Book 13 proves the paradigm for
the Confessions as a whole. But, in another way, it also proves the
paradigm for Books 1–9. Augustine distinguishes what may be
called nine “acts” in the creation story.22 God creates twice on both
the third and the sixth days, making eight creative acts in the six
days of Genesis 1, followed by the creation of the Sabbath. Augus-
tine counts God pronouncing his work “good” seven times, fol-
lowed by an eighth “very good” (13.28.43), and the seventh day of
rest makes nine acts, all told. Now the sequence of these nine acts in
Augustine’s allegory underlies the sequence of the nine books in his
autobiography. That is, parallel images and themes link Book 1 of
the Confessions and the allegory on God’s first act, Book 2 and the al-
legory on God’s second act, and so on. I have explored these paral-
lels in some detail elsewhere.23 Here I will simply show that they
exist, by summarizing those relevant to Books 5 and 9, before sug-
gesting what this pattern of parallels means. In every instance, the
imagery and themes of the allegory prove fundamental to the corre-
sponding book. Nevertheless, because each book is much longer
than its corresponding allegory, each book necessarily explores
themes and uses images beyond those in Book 13. The parallels be-
tween Books 1–9 and the allegory in Book 13 prove significant, but
not comprehensive. The allegory is a paradigm for the autobiogra-
phy, not a mould.
Book 5, at the center of Augustine’s autobiography, parallels his
allegory on the central act of the creation, that of the “lights in the
firmament of heaven” on the fourth day (13.18–19). His allegory
on God’s second act, the creation of the “firmament of heaven,” as-
sociates it with Scripture (13.15), “a firmament of authority over
us,” and he maintains this link in his allegory on God’s fifth act. Just
as the stars adhere to the firmament of heaven, so should Christians
22. For the creation story as paradigm for Books 1–9, see Robert M. Durling,
“Platonism and Poetic Form: Augustine’s Confessions,” in Jewish Culture and the
Hispanic World: Essays in Memory of Joseph H. Silverman, edited by Samuel G.
Armistead and Mishael M. Caspi, in collaboration with Murray Baumgarten
(Newark, Del.: Juan de la Cuesta, 2001), pp. 179–89. Though but recently pub-
lished, Durling gave me a copy of this essay in 1982, and my thinking on these
issues derives from it.
23. McMahon, Augustine’s Prayerful Ascent, pp. 38–116.
“appear like lights in the world, holding fast to the firmament of

Scripture” (13.18.22). Augustine goes on to link the heavenly fires
above to the heavenly flames of Pentecost, when the apostles “were
made lights in the firmament of heaven, holding the word of life”
and then went forth to preach the gospel to all nations (13.19.25).
The creation of the stars is thereby linked with the spiritual or alle-
gorical interpretation of Scripture and with preaching its truth. Ac-
cording to traditional doctrine, the apostles became the first bishops
at Pentecost, when they were “annointed” by the Holy Spirit (Acts
2:1–4); Peter then gives the first Christian sermon, interpreting
scriptural texts allegorically, in light of Jesus’ execution and Resur-
rection (Acts 2:14–36). Augustine’s allegory implies the ecclesiasti-
cal practice of his day: the spiritual interpretation and preaching of
Scripture belongs especially to bishops, the successors of the apos-
tles. His allegory also associates the “lights in the firmament” with
the gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:7–11), especially the moon
with “knowledge” and the sun with “wisdom.”
The true spiritual understanding of Scripture proves crucial to
Book 5 of the Confessions, which describes the young Augustine’s
movement away from Faustus and the Manichees (5.3–7) toward
Ambrose and Christianity (5.13–14). Ambrose expounds Old Testa-
ment passages allegorically, and his interpretations “in the spirit”
revolutionize the young Augustine’s understanding of Christianity.
He discovers that “the Catholic faith can be maintained without be-
ing ashamed of it,” for passages that were unacceptable, when taken
literally, proved illuminating and true through Ambrose’s spiritual
exposition (5.14.24). Ambrose’s preaching enables the young Au-
gustine to understand how “the letter kills, but the spirit gives life”
(2 Cor 3:6; Conf. 5.14, 6.3–4). Clearly, Ambrose is a true spiritual
descendent of the apostles, for like them he interprets the Old Testa-
ment allegorically and preaches the true faith.
In terms of the allegory in Book 13, Ambrose proves a genuine
spiritual luminary because he holds fast to the firmament of Scrip-
ture. Hence, the light of his preaching proves brilliant with “the gifts
of the Holy Spirit,” especially “the word of wisdom” and “the word
of knowledge,” the allegorical sun and moon (13.18.23). Faustus
the Manichee, in contrast, proves a false luminary, because the
Manichees do not interpret the Old Testament spiritually and so
they do not hold fast to the firmament of Scripture. In this way,
Faustus’s spiritual light is phantasmal, a vain imagination, just like
the “corporeal phantasms” of the sun and moon in Manichaean
teaching, which shed no light at all (3.6.10). This implied correla-
tion between the Manichaean sage, as a false luminary, and the
Manichaean sun and moon, as empty phantasms, is a dry piece of
Augustinian wit, but we need the parallels with Book 13 to discern
it. Among the Manichees, Faustus was considered a sage, and the
young Augustine long looked forward to learning from him how to
resolve certain questions (5.6.10). But when they finally meet, Au-
gustine finds him to be of limited attainments, and Faustus soon
undertakes studies under his direction (5.7.13)! Book 5 turns on
the contrasts between Faustus, the Manichaean false luminary with
a pleasing style of speech but no substance, and Ambrose, whose
eloquence is filled with the true light of the Catholic faith.
The allegory in Book 13 also informs Augustine’s critique of the
astronomers: they make true predictions of eclipses, but become
puffed up with foolish pride in their knowledge (5.3.4). The cri-
tique turns on the etymological link between defectus, “eclipse,” and
the verb deficere, “to fail, fall away”: “Out of an impious pride they,
receding from you and falling away [deficientes] from your light, can
foresee a coming eclipse [defectum] long before it, but their own pres-
ent eclipse they do not see” (5.3.4; my emphasis). Their pride in pre-
dicting a physical eclipse of the Sun leads to their spiritual eclipse.
Though Augustine’s general criticism proves clear enough, its de-
tails depend on the allegory in Book 13, for these are not made
explicit in Book 5. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes be-
tween the Earth and the Sun, blotting out its light. When as-
tronomers become puffed up with pride at predicting an eclipse,
they are putting the moon of their own knowledge (scientia) before
the sun of divine wisdom (13.18.22–23). “Knowledge” concerns

“sensible things,” which vary in their seasons like the changeable
Moon and are analogous to the night (13.18.22). “Wisdom” con-
cerns the eternal light of God’s truth, found in Scripture and the
Church. Hence, the astronomers’ pride in their own knowledge not
only blots out the “sun” of divine wisdom but also darkens the
“moon” of their knowledge, for they “do not see their own present
eclipse” (5.3.4). The eclipse imagery in Book 5 is both precise and
morally instructive, but the precision of its terms can only be discov-
ered by reading it in light of Augustine’s corresponding allegory in
Book 13.
The correspondences between Book 9 and the allegory on God’s
ninth act may be treated more briefly, because they prove more
readily grasped. God’s ninth act is the blessing of the Sabbath,
which Augustine interprets as “the sabbath of eternal life” with God
(13.36.51). The “peace of rest” (13.35.50) is a recurrent theme in
Book 9. The book begins with the young Augustine taking a vaca-
tion (9.4.12) at Cassiciacum after retiring from his post as a teacher
(9.2)—a time of “respite” (9.4.7) and “leisure” (9.4.8). It ends with
the death of Monica (9.11–12) and Augustine’s prayer for the eter-
nal rest of her soul with God (9.13). Only two earlier passages in
the Confessions record deaths: that of Augustine’s father (3.4.7),
mentioned in passing, and that of his friend, explored in Book 4
(4.4–12). In Book 9, Augustine records five deaths: those of his
mother, his father (now named: 9.13.37), his son Adeodatus
(9.6.14), and his two friends Verecundus (9.3.5) and Nebridius
(9.3.6). The last two passages mention the delights of paradise now
enjoyed by these faithful souls in God’s eternal sabbath.
Book 9 also records five baptisms, the sacramental death and re-
birth into the mystical body of Christ that looks forward to life with
God in his eternal sabbath. Augustine speaks of his own baptism as
a “release from anxiety” entailing “wondrous sweetness” (9.6.14), a
foretaste (as it were) of eternal peace. But the keenest foretaste of the
eternal sabbath comes in the “vision at Ostia” (9.10), when Augus-

tine and Monica ascend beyond all things to hear God’s Word in be-
atific silence. That chapter ends with Augustine looking forward to
the general resurrection on the Last Day. The whole vision, in fact,
arises from, concludes in, and is richly informed by the theme of
rest in God, “the sabbath of eternal life” (13.36.51).
Why did Augustine the author create this pattern of parallels be-
tween his autobiography and his allegory on the creation of the
Church? What might this pattern mean? Most obviously, it reveals
Books 1–9 as God’s creation of the young Augustine, in and for the
Church. Perhaps Augustine’s preferred word for the creation, forma-
tio, “formation,” brings out the sense of this more clearly. God’s
nine acts in creation are replicated in his formation of the young
Augustine as a Christian. Despite the young man’s errors and resist-
ance, God was forming him in and for the Church all the while.
In one sense, this meaning simply reinforces what we already
know: the autobiography is a conversion story. In another sense, it
universalizes the young Augustine’s story in a surprising way: his
story replicates, book by book, God’s nine acts in the Creation and
the nine stages in his creation of the Church. Scholars often point to
the ways in which the young Augustine proves an Everyman, for an
act like the pear theft is given universal significance through the nar-
rator’s theological reflection on it. But the parallels with Book 13 in-
dicate a deep structure for the autobiography: it has the same pat-
tern as the universal creation, in Genesis 1, and universal salvation
through the Church. In other words, while Augustine the narrator
universalizes certain events in the autobiography through theologi-
cal reflection, Augustine the author universalized the whole of it
through its parallels with his allegory on the creation of the Church.
These parallels represent a bold labor of self-understanding by
Augustine the author. He has integrated, at a deep level, the story of
his past with his allegory in Book 13. At this level, the young Augus-
tine’s life recapitulates all that the allegory contains: the scope of the
whole cosmos, the sweep of all time, the substance of all Scripture,
and the meaning of all history, salvation in God’s Church. In other
words, Augustine’s autobiography recapitulates universal history, as
envisioned in Book 13: its origins, recorded in Genesis; its end, the
“eternal sabbath” revealed at the close of Scripture; its meaning, sal-
vation through the Church; and its mode, governed by Providence.
According to the premise of the Confessions, these meanings lie be-
yond the ken of Augustine the narrator but are central to God’s
guiding plan for his prayer. Like universal history, these meanings
can only be understood retrospectively, from the end, when “every-
thing that is hidden shall be revealed.”
In this way, the story of the young Augustine recapitulates the
history of salvation, as developed in Book 13. On the analogy of mi-
crocosm and macrocosm, we can say that the young Augustine’s mi-
crohistory mimes the allegorical macrohistory of salvation. More-
over, according to the Confessions’s self-presentation, both occur in
Augustine the narrator’s dialogue with God, unfolding in time. In
other words, the Confessions presents itself as a microhistory, guided
by Providence. As a whole, it, too, mimes the universal history of
salvation, patterned as our return to the Origin. A set of parallels
emerges. Just as the young Augustine, unbeknown to himself, was being
guided by God to the Christian faith, and just as all human history is
providentially governed in ways no one can fully see, so does God shape
the narrator’s “Confessions” into patterns beyond his ken. The dialectic
between human freedom and providential grace is enacted in the
young Augustine’s microhistory, in the macrohistory of salvation,
and in the narrator’s dialogue with God unfolding as a return to the
Origin. Within the Confessions, all these dialectical parallels prove
instances of the Church as God’s intention and goal for creation.
CHAPTER 3
A MOVING VIEWPOINT
Augustine’s Meditative Philosophy in the Confessions
T H E P R E V I O U S C H A P T E R explored the deep coherence of

Augustine’s Confessions, its unity of texture and structure. This unity
lies beyond the ken of Augustine the narrator, for he never remarks
on it. According to the premise of the work’s self-presentation, its
unity emerges through the dynamism of the narrator’s dialogue
with God, according to God’s plan for the work as a whole. Because
I view this premise critically, I attribute this plan to Augustine the
author. Distinguishing between the narrator and the author allows
us to appreciate both the explicit dynamism of the Confessions’s un-
folding and its implicit plan, its deep coherence. It also enables us
to understand that the work contains understandings beyond what
Augustine the narrator asserts. In other words, Augustine the author
designed the work to lead readers to insights beyond those achieved
explicitly by his narrator. If we think there is only “one Augustine”
in the Confessions, we will identify him with the narrator and there-
by fall short of the further understandings designed by Augustine
the author.
In this chapter I want to explore some of these further under-
standings so as to describe the character of Augustine’s meditative
philosophy in the Confessions. By “philosophy” I mean theology as
well, all the concerns treated in Books 10–13, even the allegory on
the Church. By “meditative,” I refer primarily to understandings im-
plied by Augustine the author. By definition, these cannot be discov-
ered by reading the narrator’s statements but only by meditating
109
110 A Moving Viewpoint
upon relations between them. In one sense, of course, the Confes-

sions’s meditative character is explicit in its meditative texture: Au-
gustine the narrator wonders, poses questions, hazards answers,
searches for the truth, mulls things over, and so on. Because scholars
have often commented on this aspect of the work, I say little about
it. Characteristically, they attribute it to the historical Augustine as
they search the work for his positions or doctrines. In other words,
they recognize the work’s meditative style, but they assume that its
philosophical substance is doctrinal.
In my view, however, Augustine the author designed the Confes-
sions to lead his readers into a meditative, rather than merely a doc-
trinal, philosophy. The narrator’s doctrinal positions remain im-
portant, but they do not constitute Augustine the author’s whole
philosophy in the work. Because he designed the work as a
Christian-Platonist ascent, it has a moving viewpoint that qualifies
the truth character of its doctrinal positions. As stages in an ascent,
they remain true on their own levels, true as far as they go. But, as I
argued in Chapter 1, none of them is final. Each proves less a posi-
tion than a station along the way. The only final position in the Con-
fessions is the Church as God’s purpose for creation, and the Church,
in this sense, is not “a true position” but a container for all truths. In
other words, while Augustine the narrator’s philosophizing in the
Confessions has an explicitly meditative style, Augustine the author’s
philosophy has an implicit and meditative substance. The rest of
this chapter attempts to sketch the character of that meditative sub-
stance.
The chapter has four sections. The first returns to the Confes-
sions’s meditative texture in order to treat its moving viewpoint in
the small. This is the most obvious aspect of its meditative character,
and it is best to begin with what is already understood. The follow-
ing sections explore the work’s moving viewpoint in the large. The
second section turns on the relations between Books 2 and 8, per-
version of the will through sin and conversion of the will through
A Moving Viewpoint 111
grace. As we saw in the previous chapter, these two books are linked
with one another in the chiastic structure of thematic parallels in
Books 1–9. This dialectical link, clearly designed by Augustine the
author, invites our meditation on what these parallels imply. After
sketching out some of the parallels between Books 2 and 8, in the
second section I pursue the theme of “friendship.” Book 2 prefig-
ures its fulfillment in Book 8, and Augustine the author thereby im-
plied an understanding of friendship well beyond what his narrator
states in the Confessions.
The third and fourth sections carry the implications of the Con-
fessions’s moving viewpoint into understanding analogous mean-
ings in the work. In Chapter 1, I showed how a Christian-Platonist
ascent creates a hierarchy of analogous meanings: key words have
somewhat different meanings at different levels in the ascent. Ex-
ploring these meanings is one way to enter into Augustine’s medita-
tive philosophy in the Confessions. The third section explores various
meanings of “friendship” and “conversion” in the autobiography
against the various levels discriminated by its structure. The pattern
of Books 1–9, the young Augustine’s spiritual descent and ascent,
provides a grid against which different meanings of key words may
be discerned.
The fourth section treats analogous meanings of “memory” and
“conversion” in Books 10–13. For example, though “conversion” is
hardly mentioned in Books 10–12, the Confessions implies a conver-
sion of memory (Book 10), a conversion of time (Book 11), and a
conversion of hermeneutics (Book 12). The Church in Book 13 em-
bodies conversion at the highest level, as it does friendship and
memory. Indeed, the moving viewpoint of a Christian-Platonist as-
cent invites us to meditate on how every theme in the work is relat-
ed to its highest level, which articulates the most universal and fun-
damental category in the ascent. In the Confessions, that level is the
Church as God’s purpose for creation. Augustine the narrator is too
caught up in the dynamism of his prayer to reflect on how earlier
passages relate to later ones. Augustine the author left such medita-
tion for his readers, though he designed the Confessions as a coher-
ent whole to invite it.
Moving Viewpoint in the Small

In the previous chapter, we examined the Confessions’s medita-
tive texture as a dialogue with God, with the spontaneity and dy-
namism of a genuine conversation, even though it is “a dialogue in
one voice.” In the course of his quest for truth, Augustine the narra-
tor often makes a discovery that involves some alteration of an earli-
er view. In such instances, the moving viewpoint generated by the
dynamism of his prayer is explicitly marked, usually within a few
pages. Let us look at some of these, beginning with the most obvi-
ous examples.
Sometimes Augustine the narrator explicitly corrects an earlier
view. As we saw earlier, he first asserts that God was silent when the
young Augustine was scattered in his fornications (2.2.2), but cor-
rects himself some paragraphs later, when he realizes that God had
been speaking against his sins through the words of his mother
(2.3.7).1 Sometimes he arrives at answers that resolve earlier per-
plexities. In Book 13 Augustine the narrator has groping questions
about the Trinity in chapter 11, and then, in chapter 16, he answers
them with complete assurance. Similarly, the narrator’s inquiry into
“time” in Book 11 (11.14–28) leads him to gradually fuller under-
standings. He begins by wondering how the past and the future can
be said to exist, since the former has passed and the latter is not yet
(11.14.17). Yet as he reflects on how time is measured (11.21–27),
he comes to understand time “psychologically”: the past exists in
memory, “present attention to things past,” and the future exists in
expectation, “present attention to things future” (11.28). In this re-
1. See Sandra Lee Dixon, Augustine: The Scattered and Gathered Self (St. Louis,
Mo.: Chalice Press, 1999), for this theme in the Confessions.
Moving Viewpoint in the Small 113
spect, his conclusion resolves his earlier perplexities, and to that ex-
tent dissolves them. All these instances illustrate Augustine the nar-
rator’s inquisitio veritatis, his quest for truth, in the form best under-
stood by scholars. The inquiry progresses from partial to fuller
insights, and the later insights supersede the former, correcting and
completing them. Here, we might say, there is a direct overlap be-
tween later and earlier statements, and so the progress of the inquiry
is explicitly marked.
But there are other instances where later statements do not
directly overlap earlier ones, and whether the narrator corrects, or
merely modifies, an earlier view remains ambiguous. These ambigu-
ities have proven grist for scholars who debate “Augustine’s view” in
the work. These scholars make two assumptions. First, they assume
that the work presents the views of Augustine the author, the histor-
ical Augustine, directly. Second, they assume that he is philosophiz-
ing in a doctrinal manner, aiming at results to be formulated. In my
view, however, Augustine the author deliberately created certain am-
biguities in his narrator’s views in order to lead his readers to medi-
tate more deeply upon them. Let us consider two cases of this medi-
tative ambiguity in the Confessions.
It is well known that when Augustine the narrator reflects on his
motives for the pear theft in Book 2, he arrives at two diametrically
opposed views.2 At first, he thinks he had no positive motive for the
act at all; he only delighted in the wickedness itself (2.4.9). He treats
this idea theologically in chapter 6: the theft had no rational motive,
in terms of desire for some good, but was purely the perverse act of
2. See William E. Mann, “The Theft of the Pears,” Apeiron 12 (1978): 51–58,
esp. pp. 54–57. On the pear theft, see Leo C. Ferrari, “The Pear-Theft in Augus-
tine’s Confessions,” Revue des Etudes Augustiniennes 16 (1970): 233–41; William J.
O’Brien, “Toward Understanding Original Sin in Augustine’s Confessions,”
Thought 49 (1974): 436–46; and, most recently, Lyell Asher, “The Dangerous
Fruit of Augustine’s Confessions,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 66
(1998): 227–55.
his prideful will. In chapter 9, however, he comes to a radically dif-

ferent conclusion, for he did desire a positive, rational good: the
friendship of the boys who stole with him.
Which one is true? Because of Augustine’s theology of evil,
scholars have tended to prefer the earlier view. Jaroslav Pelikan
acknowledges and dismisses the later view with a gesture: “Even
though [Augustine] might not have done it without the company of
his peer group, who egged him on, it was not their companionship
but the theft that he loved.”3 But once we grasp the meditative tex-
ture of Augustine the narrator’s unfolding prayer, we must give the
later view pride of place. For the narrator prays his way to this self-
understanding, and he underscores it by repetition and by asserting
that God has revealed it to him: “But alone I would not have done
it, all alone I would not have done it. Behold, in your presence, my
God, is the living memory [viva recordatio] of my soul. Alone, I would
not have committed that theft” (my emphasis). And he goes on to
lament, “O friendship too unfriendly” (2.9.17). This passage affirms
unambiguously that the young Augustine had a positive motive for
his crime.
The narrator’s final formulation on the young Augustine’s mo-
tives for the pear theft would seem to be the true one. It corrects the
earlier one insofar as it overlaps with it. But the overlap is not
complete, and the relation between the two remains ambiguous.
The young Augustine unquestionably had a rational motive for the
theft. As chapter 9 shows, it is wrong to say that he loved only the
wickedness, a motive purely negative and irrational. Nevertheless,
the presence of the rational motive does not eliminate the irrational
one. It, too, may have been present. Augustine the narrator, praying
in an ongoing present, abandons the inquiry after discovering the ra-
tional motive. He does not reconsider his earlier view for whatever
3. Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Cul-
ture (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 78.
truth it might still possess in the light of his later understanding. Au-
gustine the author left that task to us. He deliberately created the
ambiguous relation between the two views and left it unresolved.
Why? What did Augustine aim to achieve by this deliberate am-
biguity? In my view, he wanted us to meditate on these two views,
and thus on ourselves. For we cannot meditate adequately on this
ambiguity in Book 2 without meditating on the ambiguities in our
own motives. The Confessions, of course, does not direct such a med-
itation, because Augustine the narrator does not undertake it, but
the work does exemplify styles of meditation for us to imitate.
Hence, we might well wonder whether a fallen human being could
ever have pure motives for any act, even purely evil ones. When the
narrator reflects upon his purely negative motives, he does not de-
scribe the thrill of rebellion, its felt risk, and the sense of excitement
at the possibility of being caught. His language does not develop the
pleasure of adventure in the adolescent’s crime, surely a component
of it.
Also, the negative motive of prideful rebellion and a positive
one, like the love of friends, can mix together easily in creatures like
ourselves. On the other hand, pride and friendship may not be so
different. For we might reflect on the motive of rivalry among the
boys (2.3.7), and the young Augustine’s desire always to be the best
(1.17.27, 1.19.30), even in shamelessness. The desire for status, a
worldly value, always partakes of rivalry with others, and therefore
entails the risk of pride, when we succeed, and of envy, when we
fail. Are our efforts to do well as teachers and scholars, efforts laud-
ably motivated in themselves, free of pride? More troubling still, can
we be sure of our answer, one way or another? In Book 10, Augus-
tine the narrator avers that he simply cannot be sure whether he has
made any progress in humility, for “in a man’s contempt for vain-
glory, he often glories still more vainly” (10.38.63). These and other
lines of reflection are opened up by the meditative ambiguity that
Augustine the author created in Book 2.
Another instance of meditative ambiguity, in my view, may be

found in Book 10, as Augustine the narrator searches for God in his
memory. But Nello Cipriani would disagree, for he finds that the re-
sult of this quest is unambiguous: “God is in the memory only from
the moment he is known, and not before.”4 And the evidence for his
position is solid, for the text clearly affirms, “You were not already
in my memory before I learnt of you” (10.26.37; cf. 10.24.35).
Cipriani finds this definitive because he assumes that the historical
Augustine was philosophizing in a doctrinal manner and that the
Confessions presents his views directly. Though Cipriani responds
sensitively to the process of the inquiry, for him it seems to be a dra-
matic way of showing the reasons for the doctrine.
When we differentiate between the historical Augustine and Au-
gustine the narrator, however, we can see that the results are not so
unambiguous, and that meditative philosophizing differs from doc-
trinal philosophizing not only in method but also in aim. For in the
chapter following the unambiguous assertion that God “[was] not
in my memory before I learnt of [him]” (10.26), Augustine the nar-
rator addresses the divine Beauty: “Late have I loved you. And be-
hold, you were within me, and I was outside and there I was seeking
you” (10.27.38). This justly famous chapter is quite different in tone
from the preceding inquiry. The scholarly tradition tends to see it as
a poetic set-piece, written by Augustine and inserted here in Book
10, with little direct connection to his inquiry into memory.5 In my
view, however, this chapter bursts forth from Augustine the narrator,
who is moved by sudden grace in his dialogue with God. This sud-
4. Nello Cipriani, O.S.A., article on “memory” in Augustine through the Ages:

An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald, O.S.A., et al. (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1999), translated by Matthew O’Connell, pp.
553–54, quotation on p. 554.
5. See, e.g., Vernon J. Bourke’s commentary on this passage in Augustine’s
Love of Wisdom: An Introspective Philosophy (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue Universi-
ty Press, 1992), pp. 199–200. He does not relate it to Augustine’s exploration of
memory, though that is the subject of Bourke’s commentary.
den grace seems to give him a different understanding: God was in

his memory before he learned of Him. At the very least, the chapter
unambiguously affirms God’s presence in the young Augustine,
even though he did not know it: “You were with me, and I was not
with you” (10.27.38).
Hence, the question arises, “How shall we understand the rela-
tions between chapters 26 and 27 on this score? Does Book 10 say
that God is not in the memory before one learns of Him, as chapter
26 asserts, or that God is in the memory always, as chapter 27 im-
plies?” On the one hand, the inward Divine Presence of chapter 27
may not be in the memory, but somewhere else in the mind. On the
other hand, Augustine the narrator is reflecting on memory: if this
inward Divine Presence is not in the memory, where should it be lo-
cated? Although God is not in the memory as an object of memory
before one learns of him, perhaps the inner Divine Presence enables
the power of memory, and so is “in” it in a different sense. Augus-
tine the narrator later reflects on God’s presence enabling his mind
as a whole as he searched into the recesses of his memory: “For you
are the abiding light which I was consulting in all these things, as to
whether they were, what they were, and what value they had”
(10.40.65). In this respect, the Divine Presence would be in the
memory as its enabling power.
The hymn to the divine Beauty in chapter 27, it seems, marks
what might be called a conversion of memory within Book 10. Be-
fore it, “memory” was defined in relation to its objects, and Augus-
tine the narrator does not find God in his memory until after he
learned of him. Within chapter 27 and afterward, however, the nar-
rator recognizes that God was always present within him, and the
context argues that God was present in his “memory.” Nevertheless,
the narrator does not assert that he was wrong before, as he does in
Book 2 when he corrects his lament that God did not warn him
against his adolescent fornications (2.2.2, 2.3.7). Hence, this “con-
version of memory” within Book 10 is somewhat ambiguous, un-
like the one we will examine later.
The more we respond to the meditative dynamism of Augustine

the narrator’s dialogue with God, the less eager we will be to fasten
on an explicit assertion as Augustine the author’s position. Book 10
does not actually give an unambiguous answer as to whether God is
present in the memory before one has learned of him. Nor is this
ambiguity a fault. Augustine the author did not fashion the Confes-
sions as an odd kind of author’s treatise, using an inquisitio veritatis to
state and defend doctrines or positions, but as the living record of
his narrator’s meditating in dialogue with God. Hence, he deliber-
ately left some issues unresolved, so as to involve his readers in the
meditative dynamism of the work.
For where the doctrinal philosopher aims to inform readers of
his results, the meditative philosopher aims to form readers to the
tasks of meditation. He offers his audience an initiation into ways of
meditating, by means of an example. Like Socrates in the aporetic
dialogues, the meditative philosopher knows that ambiguity spurs
attentive students to think for themselves, and that his arriving at a
clear result may arrest their thinking. In the Confessions, the histori-
cal Augustine created a narrator who meditates on all kinds of ques-
tions arising from his past and present life. He fashioned Augustine
the narrator as the literary means not merely to inform his readers
doctrinally, but also to form them meditatively. The narrator’s ne-
glecting to resolve all the issues he raises was part of Augustine the
author’s literary strategy.
In short, the Confessions does not directly present the views of
the historical Augustine. It directly presents Augustine the narrator
praying his way to, and through, various understandings. The medi-
tative dynamism of this process often shows him correcting or qual-
ifying an earlier statement, but whether fully or partially can be
hard to say. For the narrator is often so caught up in his dialogue
with God that he moves on without resolving the ambiguities he
has left behind. Augustine the author has left that resolution to us, if
we notice the ambiguities. We are less likely to notice them the
Moving Viewpoint in the Large 119
more we assume that the work presents Augustine the author’s posi-
tion on some issue. The work records the narrator’s moving view-
point, the process of his prayerful reflecting. Its meditative texture
and ambiguities have philosophical implications and aims, and
these were Augustine the author’s: less to inform readers of his posi-
tions than to form them in the practices of Christian meditation,
through his narrator’s example.
Moving Viewpoint in the Large: Books 2 and 8

In the previous chapter, we examined certain patterns in the
Confessions: the Christian-Platonist ascent over the whole work and
the chiastic structure of thematic parallels in Books 1–9. Augustine
the narrator does not design these patterns because his utterances
emerge through the spontaneous dynamism of his dialogue with
God. By definition, the narrator’s consciousness is wholly explicit in
the work: what he does not say, he does not notice. Augustine the
author, however, did design these patterns, and he intended his best
readers to notice them and to reflect on their implications. Now one
such pattern has often been noticed by scholars—the connection
between Books 2 and 8—but they have not ventured far in pursuing
its interpretive consequences.6 Because they find only “one Augus-
tine” in the Confessions, they are willing to explore a connection
only so far, for they aim, rightly, at faithfulness to his intentions. I
share that aim, but I argue that Augustine the author deliberately in-
vited a wider range of reflection than scholars customarily make. In
this section, I use the pattern of relations between Books 2 and 8 to
show how one might pursue the wider reflections that Augustine de-
signed his work to evoke.
Let us begin by reviewing that pattern. In Books 1–9, only Books
2 and 8 feature fruit trees. The fig tree in Book 8 explicitly stands in
6. See Leo C. Ferrari, “The Arboreal Polarization in Augustine’s Confessions,”

a garden, while the pear tree in Book 2 implies a garden. Hence,

both books allude, in different ways, to Genesis 3: the archetypal
Garden, where the first sin was committed by eating fruit from a
tree.7 The pear theft takes place at night, symbolically appropriate
for perversion of the will through sin. The conversion of the will
through grace takes place in the daylight. The influence of friends is
prominent in both, and the two books implicitly contrast two kinds
of friendship, “according to the flesh” and “according to the spirit.”
This is how the relations between Books 2 and 8 are normally
viewed, as a pattern, a static set of contrasts. But, as I suggested in
Chapter 1, we can see their relations in another way, the temporal
mode of foreshadowing and fulfillment. Book 2 thereby prefigures
Book 8 in the manner of biblical allegory, and we are invited to ex-
plore their relations in the same way that Christians meditate on
Scripture. For example, Book 8 not only fulfills but also reverses the
events of Book 2, as conversion through grace reverses perversion
through sin. The biblical archetype for this reversal is found in Ro-
mans 5, the contrast between the old Adam, whose disobedience
brought death to all humankind, and the new Adam, Jesus Christ,
whose obedience brings eternal life. From this perspective, Book 8
reenacts the events of Book 2 on a higher level, a level in right ac-
cord with God’s will. The fulfillment in Book 8 proves thereby a
higher and truer form of its prefiguring in Book 2.
At the same time, we cannot know this on the basis of Book 2 or
Book 8 if they are considered in isolation: we must read the two in
relation to one another. Moreover, noticing a static pattern of con-
trasts proves only the first step in exploring what the contrasts
mean. The analogy with prefiguring and fulfillment in biblical inter-
7. The conversion account in Book 8 reverses the Fall in Genesis 3 program-

matically, detail by detail. See Robert McMahon, “Autobiography as Text-Work:
Augustine’s Refiguring of Genesis 3 and Ovid’s ‘Narcissus’ in his Conversion Ac-
count,” Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 1
(1989): 337–66, esp. pp. 341–55.
pretation invites us to explore the contrasts meditatively. Hence, just

as the disobedience and Fall of the old Adam in Genesis 3 comes to
have new meanings in light of Christ’s obedience and Resurrection,
so does Book 2 come to have new meanings in light of Book 8.
Equally, Book 8 also comes to have new meanings in the light of
Book 2, just as Christ’s Passion does when interpreted against other
passages in the Hebrew Scriptures.
In other words, the relation between Books 2 and 8 is dialecti-
cal, because the Confessions was written with a moving viewpoint.
Augustine the author clearly planned the pattern of contrasts be-
tween them, and he thereby invited us to meditate more deeply on
what they might mean. The kind of meditation he invited was the
kind that Christians practiced when reading the Bible: exploring
one passage in light of another generates meanings beyond what
either explicitly states. Similarly, the dialectical relation between
Books 2 and 8 creates new meanings. Augustine the author thereby
created a synergy between the two books, designing a meditative
whole greater than the mere sum of its parts.
In theory, therefore, any theme of reflection in one book can be
applied to the other. Although Augustine the narrator does not pur-
sue it, Augustine the author clearly designed the possibility of pur-
suit for us. For example, in Book 2 the narrator describes a long list
of vices as perverse imitations of God (2.6.13) because “[a]ll men
imitate you perversely when they put themselves far from you and
rise up in rebellion against you” (2.6.14). We might explore the
conversion in Book 8 to see how many of these are being reversed,
and in what ways. It obviously reverses pride through the young Au-
gustine’s humble submission to God, and he also abandons his
worldly ambition and the “soft endearments of love” (2.6.14). We
might wonder how many other vices in the list are reversed in Book
8, explicitly or implicitly. Working out the details would lead us to
reflect more deeply on all that the young Augustine’s conversion im-
plies.
Similarly, Book 8 contains some trenchant reflections on the

power of habit and the “two wills” (8.5.10, 8.9–10). We might won-
der in what ways, if any, these function in Book 2. Since the habit at
issue in Book 8 involves sexual pleasure, we might reflect on the
adolescent Augustine’s burgeoning sexuality and boasting of his sex-
ual exploits (2.2–3) as the first forging of those chains of habit from
which God frees him (8.1.1). His sexuality is peculiarly linked with
rivalry with the other youths, with “worldly success,” implying that
more is involved with satisfying sexual desire than physical pleas-
ure. Is some version of the “two wills” at work in this mixture of the
“worldly” and the physical? Is some version of it at work in the two
motives that Augustine the narrator discovers for the pear theft, the
negative love of evil itself (2.4–6) and the positive desire for the
friendship of others (2.9)? Clearly, Book 2 has some form of a paral-
lel with the “two wills” in Book 8, but how close the parallel may
be, what it means, and how far it goes remains unclear. Augustine
the author left its meanings for our meditation, if we notice the par-
allel and think it important.
The same dialectical principle may be applied to imagery as well
as to themes. For example, the young Augustine’s conversion fea-
tures his weeping in repentance underneath a fig tree. The impor-
tance of this weeping for his conversion invites us to look for an
equivalent in Book 2 and to meditate on what their relations might
mean. Now there is no actual weeping in Book 2, though weeping is
featured in Book 1 (1.13) and Book 3 (3.2, 11–12). Perhaps, then,
this not weeping is significant and proves the dialectical opposite
to the repentant weeping in Book 8: the rebellious adolescent boasts
of his shameful deeds (2.2–3) rather than weeps over them. Self-
assertion and rebellion without tears beneath the pear tree, in Book
2, would be opposed to self-abasement and humility with tears be-
neath the fig tree, in Book 8. The absence of weeping in Book 2
proves a significant component in its portrayal of sinfulness. If we
do not reflect on the parallels between Books 2 and 8, we are not
likely to notice how telling this absence of weeping is.
Although Book 2 has no images of weeping, it does use water

imagery to characterize the adolescent Augustine’s sexuality. This
imagery forms a dialectical parallel with the weeping in Book 8,
and we might wonder what it means. In Book 2, the adolescent
Augustine is moved by “youth’s seething spring,” “plunged into a
whirlpool of shameful deeds,” and “tossed about and spilt over in
[his] fornications” (2.2.2). His youthful passions are “a flood”
(2.2.3) and a “sweeping tide” (2.2.4). In Book 8, the young Augus-
tine pours forth copious tears (8.12.28), repenting that his attach-
ment to sexual pleasure has kept him from devoting himself to
God. Clearly, the water imagery of adolescent sexuality is opposed
by this repentant weeping. That opposition is underscored by its
taking place beneath a fig tree, associated with sexuality throughout
the Mediterranean world. When Adam and Eve notice their naked-
ness after they sin, they cover their genitals with fig leaves (Gn 3:7),
and a traditional etymology links the fig (ficus) with fertility (fecun-
ditas).
In this light, we can explore the dialectic implied by the parallel
water images in the two books. On the one hand, there is “some-
thing sexual” about the young Augustine’s mortification through
tears in Book 8: he is prone, beneath a sexually symbolic tree, giving
free rein to his flowing passions. But his sexuality is being converted
from a carnal to a spiritual one, linked with Dame Continence, “a
fertile [fecunda] mother of children” for God (8.11.27). On the other
hand, there is something mortifying about the adolescent Augus-
tine’s sexuality in Book 2. Certainly, Augustine the narrator is morti-
fied by the adolescent’s lying boasts about his sexual exploits, the
boy’s fear of shame for not being the most shameless (2.3.7).
Though the narrator acknowledges the goodness of the boy’s “one
delight, to love and to be loved” (2.2.2), he reproves the character of
the loves he then pursued. The adolescent Augustine should have
been mortified to boast by lying and to assert his independence by
the tawdry vandalism of the pear theft. In one sense, such acts are
“natural,” typical of adolescent boys then and today. In another
sense, they are profoundly unnatural, as Book 2 argues: they are

steeped in false values and thereby further alienate the adolescent
Augustine from the path to happiness.
Through “literary” images, then, as well as “philosophical”
themes, Augustine the author created connections between passages
in the Confessions and invited us to meditate upon them. Alhough
Augustine the narrator leaves the pear theft behind him in Book 2,
Augustine the author did not. Rather, he crafted Book 8 as its the-
matic parallel and opposition. He thereby invited us to notice the
connections between the two books and to reflect further on what
they mean. Book 2 prefigures its fulfillment in Book 8, in the man-
ner of biblical allegory. Augustine the author has invited us to no-
tice the connections between the two and to reflect on them, in the
way that Christians meditate on Scripture. Reading the two books
together in this way generates possibilities of meaning beyond what
either states. This was Augustine the author’s deliberate literary strat-
egy: he designed the Confessions to be read in this way. If we would
be faithful to his intentions in the work, we must be willing to go
beyond, and sometimes far beyond, what Augustine the narrator
states.
I want to venture into that “far beyond” by exploring the theme
of friendship implied by the dialectic between Books 2 and 8. Al-
though Book 8 names certain friends, it does not contain any explic-
it reflection on friendship, as does Book 2 (2.3.7–8, 2.9.17). Hence,
the theme of friendship in Book 8 emerges through the implica-
tions entailed by its dialectical parallels with Book 2. The friendship
in Book 2 may be called “carnal,” “friendship according to the
flesh.” It is the false friendship of an adolescent gang, bound togeth-
er by rivalry in shameless deeds, and the pear theft characterizes it
further as a fellowship in crime. The darkness of night thereby
proves more than the time setting for the deed, for this friendship is
dark in a spiritual sense. Of the “works of the flesh” listed by St.
Paul, the adolescent gang exemplifies several: fornication, immod-
esty, rivalry, envy, contention, and revelry (Gal 5:19–21). Here, in-
deed, is a “friendship too unfriendly” (2.9.17).
The friendship of Book 8, in contrast, proves spiritual. The bad
influence of the young Augustine’s gang in Book 2, fostering his
moral degeneration, is contrasted by the good influence of friends
in Book 8, fostering his conversion. Who are these friends, and in
what ways is their friendship “spiritual”? Simplicianus tells the
young Augustine about Marius Victorinus’s conversion (8.2) in or-
der “to exhort [him] to the humility of Christ” (8.2.3). Simplicianus
thereby proves a spiritual friend by deliberately guiding the young
man toward conversion. When Ponticianus, however, relates the
conversions of St. Anthony (8.6.14) and the two agentes in rebus
(8.6.15), he is not intending to lead the young Augustine toward
conversion. Still, he proves a spiritual friend, in some sense, because
he is Christian, manifests benevolence toward the young man, and
holds Christian conversation with him. Ponticianus speaks in chari-
ty, and in that sense he is bound to the young Augustine by the Holy
Spirit, which the narrator considers the sign of true friendship
(4.4.7). Monica and Alypius also prove to be true spiritual friends of
the young man, even though they do not directly foster his conver-
sion itself in Book 8. Alypius immediately follows him into the
faith, and Monica greets their news with joy (8.12.30). But they
have helped Augustine along the road to faith, as Books 1–6 attest.
Augustine the narrator does not have much to say about “spiri-
tual friendship” in the Confessions, beyond the truth that its bond is
charity, “the love which is poured forth into our hearts by the Holy
Spirit which is given to us” (4.4.7).8 But this we already knew. Au-
gustine the author, however, had a great deal to say about it, implied
in concrete details of character and personal relationship. Monica,
8. See Paul J. Waddell, C.P., Friendship and the Moral Life (South Bend, Ind.:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), pp. 97–104, for Augustine’s Christianiz-
ing of classical ideals of friendship by means of this chapter in the Confessions.
Alypius, Simplicianus, Ponticianus, and Ambrose all prove to be

spiritual friends of the young Augustine, but in different ways. Any-
one who wishes to explore in detail the historical Augustine’s think-
ing about spiritual friendship in the Confessions has a great deal of
material for meditation. It goes far beyond the few explicit discus-
sions undertaken by Augustine the narrator.
The dialectical relation between Books 2 and 8 opens a further
question about spiritual friendship. In Book 2, the friends “accord-
ing to the flesh” are physically present with the young Augustine as
their rivalry in rebellion urges them into the pear theft. In Book 8,
Simplicianus and Ponticianus are also physically present with the
young man, fostering his conversion. But, we might wonder, do
spiritual friends need to be physically present? In what sense, if any,
might the two agentes be considered spiritual friends of the young
Augustine? Of course, he has never met them. Nevertheless, Augus-
tine the narrator says that he “was loving them very ardently”
(8.7.16), and this is the language of affection and friendship. Evi-
dently, this affection was being poured forth into his heart by the
Holy Spirit, for his love, admiring their conversion, entailed his self-
recrimination for failing to turn wholly to God. The young Augus-
tine’s affection for the two agentes leads directly to his conversion.
Therefore, it is truly spiritual and may be considered a form of
friendship.
But, it may be objected, the two agentes do not reciprocate the
young Augustine’s affection, and therefore they cannot properly be
considered friends. Evidently, considering them as “friends” would
require an extension of the notion of friendship, and we might
wonder whether this would be warranted and what it might imply.
Aristotle’s treatment of friendship (philia) in the Nicomachean Ethics
runs from personal friendships to family relations to relations
among fellow citizens. The Greek philia embraces all these. Perhaps,
on this model, we could extend “spiritual friendship” in the Confes-
sions to include, in certain cases, persons whom the young Augus-
tine never met. Some of us might allow this extension, while others
might find it unwarranted. But the ground for making it is tradition-
al teaching on the Church as “the communion of saints.” Communio
(communion) is bolder than communitas (community), for it asserts
a union of hearts that transcends time, place, and even death. In my
view, Augustine the author invited us to explore this extension of
“spiritual friendship,” in Book 8, to persons whom the young Au-
gustine has never met. These would include not only the two
agentes, his contemporaries whom he could meet, but also St. An-
thony, whose example he follows (8.12.29) and whom he could not
meet, for Anthony died in 356, when Augustine was a small child.
But this line of reflection entails a more interesting question:
Should we consider Augustine our friend? In my view, Augustine the
author deliberately implied this question by the dialectic between
Books 2 and 8. It may not be a scholarly question, according to the
current canons of scholarship, but it is profoundly Augustinian. Au-
gustine the narrator cannot raise it, because the premise of his Con-
fessions requires an indirect relationship with prospective readers,
for his direct audience is God (10.2–5). The power of the question
lies in its being implied, like the punchline of a joke or the motives
of a character in a play—we watch Lear give away his kingdom and
wonder why. To pursue such a question leads us more deeply into
the work and into ourselves. It can only be answered by meditating
on the relevant issues in the work and in our lives. Allow me, then,
to pursue this question in the first person.
It would be trivial to say that Augustine and I cannot be friends
because I have never met him, for I know the narrator of the Confes-
sions better than most people I can be said to “know.” This knowl-
edge arises less through the reported details of the young Augus-
tine’s life than through the narrator’s meditation on them and
on the issues raised in Books 10–13. In my view, the praying voice
of the Confessions is the persona of the historical Augustine, and not
the whole man speaking directly for himself. Nevertheless, Augus-
tine the narrator reveals “the whole mind” of his historical author in
a way unmatched by Augustine’s other works, for the Confessions un-
veils the processes by which he meditated, prayed, and thought. I
grant the distancing involved in any literary, as in any social, presen-
tation of oneself. Nevertheless, the Confessions is a work of bold inti-
macy, especially for its time, and it has succeeded in evoking my
intimacy in return. By working to understand it, I have come to
understand myself better. Friendship with another fosters self-
understanding. I know Augustine better than I know most of my
contemporaries, and he has helped me to know myself. That is one
index of friendship.
It may be objected, however, that Augustine did not know me,
and so this relationship lacks the reciprocity of genuine friendship.
Moreover, though I have benefited by his goodwill toward his read-
ers in general, he did not intend to benefit me personally, as friends
do, nor can I benefit him. These are telling objections. From their
perspective, the “friendship” I have with Augustine proves no differ-
ent than what anyone might claim with any beloved writer. This
might tell us something valuable about the power of certain books
in our lives, but it does not give Augustine a place beyond, say,
Dante or Montaigne.
On the other hand, it is not true that I cannot benefit Augustine
because he is dead. He asks his readers to remember his parents in
their prayers (9.13.37), and he also hopes they will pray for him
(10.4.5). Augustine believed in the communion of saints and evi-
dently thought that, after his death, the living could benefit him by
their prayers. Moreover, I teach the Confessions regularly to under-
graduates and occasionally write about it. In these ways, I care for
Augustine’s memory. This would have pleased him, and perhaps it
does please him. For if Augustine is a saint and the Church really is
“the communion of saints,” then it is not quite true to say that he is
dead. The saints are held to live in God, and in the beatific vision
they know all that God allows them to know. Augustine believed in
the saints’ eternal life with God, and he designed the Confessions to
climax in an allegorical meditation on the Church as God’s purpose
for Creation, ending in the Sabbath of eternal life. According to Au-
gustine, because true spiritual friendship is rooted in the charity
poured forth by the Holy Spirit (4.4.7), it can transcend time and
space, and even death, for the Church is an eternal communion. In
the Church, as Augustine understood it, we are joined by spiritual
friendship with people we have never met.
But we do not have to believe what Augustine believed to ac-
knowledge that he continues to live, in a qualified way. The histori-
cal Augustine crafted his Confessions so that Augustine the narrator
continues to pray “now,” whenever we read the work, and whenever
we read it, we take up his praying “I” as our own. In this sense, the
Confessions proves different from Montaigne’s Essays, for though
Montaigne is speaking to us in his Essays, we cannot read the Confes-
sions without praying Augustine’s prayer. In other words, the Augus-
tinian “I” of the Confessions continues his dialogue with God in the
present through us. Augustine the author designed this literary strat-
egy to incorporate his readers into the communion of saints. And
every reader, regardless of belief, necessarily partakes of that com-
munion, as the Confessions embodies it. The work not only climaxes
in the Church but also enacts the Church by its literary form as a di-
alogue with God.
In other words, Augustine aimed to befriend his readers in God.
The Confessions directly enacts Augustine the narrator’s intimacy
with God and catches readers up into his prayer. It thereby brings
readers into intimacy with the narrator’s life and mind. Some read-
ers accept this intimacy and grow into it; others find Augustine un-
sympathetic and resist. In any event, the Confessions labors to estab-
lish spiritual friendship between Augustine and his readers. The
narrator does not say so, and the author cannot. Nevertheless, the
long history of responses to the Confessions shows how successful
Augustine has been at creating a sense of intimacy with his readers.
In my view, then, Augustine the author designed the dialectical

relations between Books 2 and 8 to provoke reflections like these. To
be sure, these reflections move well beyond what Augustine the nar-
rator states in the Confessions, yet they do so by following the medi-
tative lines of the work. “Is Augustine our friend?” may well be
considered an unscholarly question, but if so, then scholarship is
fettered by a philological-historical bias. We cannot be faithful to
Augustine the author’s achievement in the Confessions if we are un-
willing to pursue its meditative implications well beyond his narra-
tor’s utterances.
To some extent, the preceding comparisons of Books 2 and 8 do
only what literary interpretation always does: find a pattern and ex-
plore its meaning. The pattern need not be based on thematic paral-
lels in the chiastic structure of Books 1–9. The young Augustine’s
weeping in Book 8 can be fruitfully interpreted in relation to any
other weeping in Books 1–9; the theme of “responding to stories” in
Book 8 can be seen to fulfill every earlier account of reading and
hearing. In theory, anything that can be related to anything else es-
tablishes a pattern to be interpreted. Literary critics of the Confes-
sions have been finding and interpreting patterns for decades. They
have not needed my distinction between Augustine the narrator and
Augustine the author, nor have they needed the analogy of biblical
prefiguring and fulfillment.
Yet this distinction and analogy do enable more adventurous re-
flection, one faithful to Augustine the author’s intentions. The bibli-
cal analogy encourages the dialectical study of two passages so that
each illuminates the other. It thereby urges us to explore the rela-
tions between two passages for all they are worth. Literary interpre-
tation of the Confessions has tended to be cautious, perhaps because
it has had to win its way against more traditional scholarly work in
philology and history. In my view, Augustine hoped that his work
would be interpreted as boldly as Christians read the Bible, and in
similar ways. That is something scholars have yet to do, perhaps be-
cause such boldness would not be considered scholarship.
Analogy 131
The distinction between Augustine the narrator and Augustine

the author fosters such boldness. Scholars who find only “one Au-
gustine” in the Confessions identify him with the narrator and are
tethered by what he says. But, I have been arguing, the true measure
of our interpreting should be not what the narrator says, but what
Augustine the author accomplished in the work as a whole. Augus-
tine the narrator leaves the pear theft behind in Book 2, but the Con-
fessions as a whole does not, and thus Augustine the author did not.
Book 2 is present in Book 8, because vital to our full understanding
of it. Book 2 is also implicitly present whenever the narrator takes
up again one of its central images or themes: water, tree, garden,
Genesis 3, sexual desire, the passions, rivalry, the nature of evil,
friendship, and so on. Augustine the narrator, whose consciousness
is wholly explicit, does not reflect on these recurring images and
themes, and he usually does not even notice them. But Augustine
the author designed these recurrences and grasped their relations.
He thereby implied understandings far beyond what his narrator
says. He expected his readers to notice these recurrences and to
meditate on them, and the model for such meditation was Chris-
tian reflection on the Bible. If we wish to reach up to the historical
Augustine’s understandings in the Confessions, we must meditate on
its recurrent patterns more boldly than we have.9
Analogy: Friendship and Conversion

In Chapter 1, I argued that a Christian-Platonist ascent creates a
ladder of analogies, for key terms come to have different meanings
on different levels. The Confessions unfolds from a moving view-
point, and this viewpoint generates new meanings of the same word
in different contexts. In a sense, every well-designed literary work
gives its key terms new nuances of meaning as its plot develops. A
9. Andrew Fichter’s analysis of the Confessions as a Christian Aeneid is an ex-

emplary instance of the boldness I am urging; see his book Poets Historical, pp.
40–69.
Christian-Platonist ascent, however, has stages of development that

mark different levels of meaning. Its hierarchy of levels enables us to
explore a hierarchy of meanings for its key terms.
We have begun to see how this works with respect to friendship.
Friendship in Book 2, “according to the flesh,” means something
different from friendship in Book 8, “according to the spirit.” Book
8 even implies that a kind of spiritual friendship can occur between
persons who have never met, thanks to the communion of saints in
the Church. Augustine the narrator’s ascent culminates in an allego-
ry envisioning God’s creation of the Church in Genesis 1. As God’s
purpose for creation, the Church proves the highest, the most fun-
damental, and the most comprehensive category of being in the
Confessions. Hence the work’s structure as a Christian-Platonist as-
cent invites us to understand every theme in relation to the Church,
as presented in Book 13. For every theme, then, the work creates a
hierarchy of analogies, with the allegory in Book 13 at the highest
level and a range of meanings and realizations at various other lev-
els. The Confessions invites us to sort out these various levels of
meaning and to explore their relations in order to understand Au-
gustine the author’s rationale for treating them as he does. The med-
itative genre, in other words, tacitly invites readers to meditate on
the hierarchy of analogies created by the hierarchy of its ascent.
When we attempt this with respect to friendship in the Confes-
sions, certain broad categories emerge. These I will sketch out and
then explain how they may be correlated with the structure of Books
1–9. As we saw in the previous chapter, the young Augustine’s story
unfolds in a curve of spiritual descent and ascent, with Book 5 as
the swing-book in the center. The various forms of friendship can be
roughly correlated with the levels of his spiritual development. This
sorting out marks the first stage in a meditation on friendship in the
Confessions. Such a meditation would lead one to understand more
fully not only Augustine the author’s thinking on friendship but
also one’s own. This was Augustine’s literary strategy in the Confes-
Analogy 133
sions: he designed the meditative work to foster the reader’s medita-

tion.
At the highest level is spiritual friendship, a union made possi-
ble by the love poured forth in hearts by the Holy Spirit (4.4.7; cf.
Rom 5:5). Here we may distinguish, without separating, spiritual
friendship between persons, or friendship in God, from friendship
with God. Spiritual friendship between persons occurs most obvi-
ously in intimacy between two contemporaries, friendship (as we
normally understand it) perfected by charity. Yet the dialectical rela-
tions between Books 2 and 8 imply that an analogous form of that
friendship can take place between persons who have never met, and
indeed even between the living and the dead. The Church, as a com-
munion of saints, unites souls beyond time and death. Both of
these forms of spiritual friendship between persons are portrayed in
the Confessions in various concrete ways.
Friendship with God, however, is portrayed, or rather enacted,
on every page. Augustine the narrator’s dialogue with God illustrates
concretely an array of meditative practices that embody friendship
with God. Augustine the author fashioned this genre as a literary
strategy aimed at drawing readers into friendship with God, for
every reader necessarily takes on the narrator’s voice and thereby
takes up his prayer. The Confessions thereby enacts the Church, from
its first sentence to its last, by incorporating readers into its prayer.
Although Augustine the narrator never discusses spiritual friendship
with God, his utterances do not mark the limit of Augustine the au-
thor’s understanding.
The friendship of Book 2 may be characterized as carnal and
ranked among the various forms of “worldly friendship.” In its
worst forms, it is characterized by rivalry, and therefore by pride and
envy. In Book 2, this “friendship too unfriendly” proves a commun-
ion in shameless deeds. Indeed, worldly friendship seems to partake
of some or all of the vices in Book 2, chapter 6, for it involves rivalry
with God, the attempt to establish an order of relations different
from that taught by the Church. “The friendship of this world is for-
nication away from [God], and ‘Well done! Well done!’ is said, so
that a man is ashamed if he is otherwise” (1.13.21). Certainly, fear
of shame moves the young Augustine to the pear theft, for “all alone
[he] would not have done it” (2.9.17), just as fear of shame and the
love of praise spark his boasting of sexual exploits (2.2.7). When
worldly friendship is “the friendship of this world,” it is infused by
non-Christian values and thereby becomes “fornication away from
God.”
Yet worldly friendship seems also to include the friendship de-
scribed so beautifully in Book 4, chapters 8–9, for it is based on the
pleasures of this life: “to make conversation, to laugh together, to
serve each other in turn with good will, to read together well-written
books, to share in trifling and in serious matters,” and so on. This
friendship does not partake of rivalry but only of “delight acting as
fuel to set our minds on fire and out of many to forge unity”
(4.8.13), an allusion to Cicero’s On Friendship.10 Yet because this
unity is not forged in and by God, “it is fixed in sorrows” (4.10.15)
and doomed to disappointment.
The lowest form of friendship in the Confessions is not “the
friendship of this world” but Manichaeanism. The Manichees are
characterized by “folly” and “madness.” Because they form an anti-
Church, their friendship is worse than “the friendship of this
world.” According to Augustine the narrator, the Manichees actively
distort Christian teaching, whereas the men of “the world” merely
ignore it. In this way, Manichaean teaching proves anti-Christian,
while worldly values are non-Christian. Though the Manichees un-
derstand themselves as highly spiritual, Augustine the narrator char-
acterizes them as worse than worldly, “insanely proud and exces-
sively carnal” (3.6.10).
The one instance of Manichaean friendship in the Confessions is
10. Cicero, On Friendship, 98, cited by Chadwick at the end of 4.8.13.

Analogy 135
the young Augustine’s intimacy with the boy who died (4.4), and it
is marked by the young Augustine’s insane pride and carnal attach-
ment. The young Augustine led his friend into Manichaeanism, and
when the boy falls unconscious in his illness, his family has him
baptized. When the boy recovers consciousness, Augustine mocks
the baptism, yet the boy defends his new Christianity fiercely. Al-
though the young Augustine is astounded and disturbed, he says
nothing, for he feels sure that when the boy should recover, “I
would be able to do with him what I would wish” (4.7.8). The
young Augustine sees himself as the dominant partner in the friend-
ship, and in his arrogance he intends to dominate his friend’s be-
liefs. What the boy desires in this regard does not matter to him. Yet
the boy dies, “taken away from my madness, so that he might be
preserved with [God] for my consolation,” and the young Augustine
is plunged into grief. He is entirely dependent on the physical pres-
ence of his companion. According to the Confessions, Manichaean-
eism does not admit of a genuinely spiritual friendship that endures
beyond death. The young Augustine, a worldly careerist and a Mani-
chaean, could feel deeply for another yet not recognize how his
friendship was limited by his prideful desire to dominate and by his
attachment to physical presence. The insane pride and carnality of
the Manichees (3.6.10) are enacted in the young Augustine’s friend-
ship with the boy who died (4.4).
Here, then, are three broad categories of friendship in the Con-
fessions, with three categories of community: the Manichees, the
world, and the Christian Church. A fourth category of friendship
seems to be implied in a fourth category of community, philosophy.
Book 7 characterizes the teachings of the Platonists as an incom-
plete Christianity: they understand and even experience God as a
spiritual substance, but they do not believe in the Incarnation
(7.10). Hence they perceive the heavenly fatherland from afar, but
they do not know the way to reach it and dwell in it, because they
do not believe in Christ, “the way, the truth, and the life” (7.20.26).
The Confessions does not portray a Platonist community or its

friendships, yet it seems to acknowledge them by its qualified praise
for Platonist philosophy. Perhaps the young Augustine’s preconver-
sion friendship with Alypius could be called “philosophical” (6.7–
16), for it is marked by their common pursuit of truth and good
conduct. They almost succeed in starting a philosophical commune,
dedicated to the quest for truth and the happy life in modest leisure
(otium; 6.14.24).
These four forms of friendship can be roughly correlated with
the moving viewpoint of the young Augustine’s story in Books 1–9,
discussed in the previous chapter. Its first half proves largely a spiri-
tual descent, followed by a spiritual ascent over its second half. The
young Augustine grows into shameless deeds (Book 2) and “falls”
into Manichaeanism (3.6.10). His nadir comes in the middle of
Book 5, when he deceives his mother in order to travel without her
to Italy (5.8) and then becomes desperately ill yet refuses to be bap-
tized (5.9). So, too, we see the lowest form of worldly friendship in
Book 2, followed by his Manichaean friendship with the boy who
died, in Book 4. Conversely, his spiritual ascent begins when he be-
gins to attend Ambrose’s sermons in Book 5 (5.13–14); it culmi-
nates in his conversion (8.12), baptism (9.6), and mystical experi-
ence at Ostia (9.10). Within this ascending curve, his “philosophical
friendship” with Alypius is portrayed in Book 6, and spiritual
friendship with Christians he has never met is implied in Book 8.
Book 9 directly indicates Augustine’s communion with his dead
friends, Verecundus and Nebridius (9.3), and with his dead son
(9.6), for he is confident of their salvation. He closes his autobiogra-
phy by asking his readers to pray for his parents (9.13.37). This re-
quest implies spiritual friendship in the highest sense: benevolent
acts toward persons whom the reader has never met. Augustine’s au-
tobiography thereby closes with spiritual friendship in the Church,
as a communion embracing both the living and the dead.
As we saw in the previous chapter, this spiritual descent and as-
cent in Books 1–9 enacts thematic parallels in its chiastic structure.
Analogy 137
Images and themes on the descent therefore tend to show the young
Augustine’s deformation, while their recurrences on the ascent im-
ply his reformation. The dialectic we have explored between Books
2 and 8 illustrates this contrast in some detail. It stands to reason,
then, that “friendship” in Books 1–9 should have different mean-
ings, depending on whether the young Augustine is descending or
ascending spiritually, and where he is precisely in the curve of the
autobiography. In other words, friendship proves an analogous
term, and its various meanings can be roughly correlated with the
levels of the young Augustine’s development.
The correlation is not perfectly aligned, because there are coun-
termovements in each half: the young man’s “conversion to philos-
ophy” (3.4), for instance, briefly counters his descent, just as plans
for his career-advancing marriage (6.13–15) hinder his spiritual
progress. With respect to friendship, the beautiful portrayal of the
pleasures of friendship late in Book 4 (4.8–9) seems somewhat out
of place because it occurs while the young Augustine is a Manichee.
Its emphasis on reading and conversation, and its allusion to Ci-
cero’s On Friendship (4.8.13), suggests that this friendship is incipi-
ently philosophical. Certainly, this emphasis is echoed in Book 6,
when the young Augustine is almost a decade older and plans a
philosophical retirement with his friends (6.14).11 The pleasures of
friendship portrayed late in Book 4, then, seem to be at a higher lev-
el than the pride and carnality of Manichaeanism would warrant.
True, the pleasures are confined to this world, and the love of con-
versation (4.7.13) does not yet include the longing for truth and
wisdom so prominent in Book 6 (6.10.17, 6.11–14). Nevertheless,
the emphasis on shared pleasures does not have the note of a domi-
nating partner, as does the young Augustine’s “Manichaean friend-
ship” with the boy who died.
Now some such sorting of categories is necessary for anyone
11. William A. Stephany, “Thematic Structure in Augustine’s Confessions,” pp.

136–38, treats friendship as a crucial thematic parallel between Books 4 and 6.
wanting to understand the historical Augustine’s thinking about

friendship in the Confessions. Augustine the narrator says relatively
little on the topic, but Augustine the author implied a great deal. He
constructed Books 1–9 with a moving viewpoint, as a chiastic grid
of levels: a spiritual descent and ascent, with thematic parallels link-
ing Books 1 and 9, 2 and 8, and so on. This grid of levels helps inter-
preters to understand the various forms of friendship by correlating
each with the young Augustine’s spiritual development. The grid is
implied, and it does no interpretive work by itself, but it functions
to help us grasp the analogous meanings of friendship implied in
the Confessions.
Augustine the author thereby invited his readers to meditate on
and evaluate his rationale for situating the various forms of friend-
ship as he did. Augustine the narrator is so caught up in the dy-
namism of his dialogue with God that he is not aware of its being
structured chiastically, nor does he explore the implied relations be-
tween the various forms of friendship that he portrays. But Augus-
tine the author knew what he was doing. He tacitly invited us to
meditate on “friendship” in the Confessions, and he structured the
work so as to assist our reflection. He used his narrator to suggest
the range of his thinking but he deliberately refused to make his full
thought explicit. In that way, he led us to think more deeply about
the work and about ourselves. For we cannot come to grips with
what Augustine the author implied about friendship without reflect-
ing on our own understanding of it. The meditative work was de-
signed to lead us into meditation, to know ourselves and God better
by way of the Confessions.
In theory, then, any key word in the work has different mean-
ings on different levels. A given level provides one index for how to
understand its use of the term and, concomitantly, the meaning a
key word receives from its narrative and philosophical context helps
us grasp the character of the level. The Confessions, however, is struc-
tured, not rigidly, but beautifully and flexibly. I do not mean to sug-
Analogy 139
gest that a key word’s meaning is straightjacketed to its level, for Au-
gustine was too subtle a literary artist to limit himself in that way.
Rather, I have emphasized the correlation between the analogy of
friendship and the structure of Books 1–9 because scholars have of-
ten thought that the Confessions was not carefully designed. This
structure offers one, but only one, index to the meaning of a word.
The structural grid of the Christian-Platonist ascent was designed to
foster our meditation on the crucial topics indicated by key words,
not to restrict our efforts. Indeed, when we consider a crucial topic
like “conversion,” its potential meanings proliferate from a primary
sense to many secondary ones.
The primary sense of “conversion” in the Confessions is evident
in the young Augustine’s conversion to Christian faith and conti-
nence in Book 8 (8.12). This “conversion of the will” is prepared
for, and thus prefigured, by his “conversion of the intellect” in Book
7 (7.10). In both these instances, “conversion” indicates a funda-
mental insight or new orientation that has long-lasting effects. But
the young Augustine’s decision to become a Manichee (3.6) also
had long-lasting effects, and therefore it should be considered as a
negative conversion. It occurs in the middle of his spiritual descent,
in the first half of Books 1–9, and it accelerates that descent. The ef-
fects of this negative conversion, in Book 3, are eventually coun-
tered by the dramatic, positive conversions in Books 7 and 8, during
the young Augustine’s spiritual ascent.
Should we consider the story in Book 2, especially the pear theft,
to indicate another negative conversion? On the one hand, the pear
theft is presented as a single incident, and the young Augustine is
not converted to a life of crime. On the other hand, Book 2 tells us
about his adolescent sexuality and refers to his first sexual experi-
ences. It thereby indicates the first forging of the chains of habit that
are broken only by his conversion to Christianity and continence in
Book 8. In Book 2, then, the young Augustine experiences a conver-
sion to “the flesh” in his new passion for sexual experience. This
passion is linked with the boy’s love of praise, his rivalry with oth-
ers, and his desire always to be the best, even in shameless deeds. In
these respects, the pear theft also proves symptomatic of his conver-
sion to “the world,” for he heeds these worldly voices and aspires
for worldly praise, even as he scorns his mother’s advice urging him
to abstain from fornication (2.3.7). The pear theft also alludes to
the Fall of Genesis 3, a negative conversion with long-lasting effects,
and the Confessions implies that this “fall” in Book 2 leads directly
toward his own fall into Manichaeanism in Book 3 (incidi, “I fell”;
3.6.10). In these ways, Book 2 tells the story of a negative conversion
to “the world and the flesh.”
Now some interpreters may reject the very notion of a negative
conversion as an unwarranted extension of a word with properly
positive meanings. They would be willing to call the young Augus-
tine’s reading of Cicero’s Hortensius (3.4) his “conversion to philoso-
phy,” but they would not use the word for his fall into Manichaean-
ism. Others might accept the idea of a negative conversion for the
latter, though not for Book 2. They might argue that every growing
person experiences the lures of “the flesh” and “the world”; some
enchantment by these is natural, and therefore not the new orienta-
tion implied by “conversion.”
A third group might be willing to extend the term to minor con-
versions that manifestly prepare for the major ones, whether posi-
tive or negative. These interpreters would regard the young Augus-
tine’s listening to Ambrose’s sermons (5.13–14, 6.3–4) as a positive
conversion, and perhaps the boy’s self-indulgent reading of the
Aeneid (1.13) as a negative one. Would they go so far as to consider
the young Augustine’s change of attitude toward Faustus a positive,
though comic, conversion? For he begins by eagerly awaiting Faus-
tus as the sage who will answer his doubts about Manichaeanism
(5.3.3; 5.6.10), and he ends by taking Faustus on as a student, read-
ing with him only those books Augustine thinks “proper to his abil-
ities” (5.7.13). This “conversion” away from Faustus foreshadows his
Analogy 141
“conversion” toward Ambrose later in Book 5, which prepares for his

conversion to Christianity.
In other words, what constitutes a conversion? How radical
must the new orientation be in order to count as “a conversion”?
Augustine the author designed the Confessions to invite these ques-
tions because exploring them leads readers more deeply into the
work and into themselves. He designed the autobiography so that
the conversion account in Book 8 fulfills many earlier moments of
discovery, which prefigure it. He thereby led us to wonder whether
any of these earlier discoveries might also be considered “conver-
sions,” and why. To answer this question, we must reflect on our cri-
teria for a conversion, and this will normally involve considering
our own experience of conversion or of moments akin to it. Such
moments may include not only grand events, like realizing one’s vo-
cation or falling in love, but also more subtle ones, like the insight
that crystallized a dissertation or reading the right book at the right
time. Whatever criteria for conversion we arrive at must then be
brought to bear on the Confessions which, in turn, informs and af-
fects our criteria. Augustine the author designed the work to engen-
der meditation on it and on ourselves in this way. In fact, scholar-
ship on the Confessions normally arises from meditation in this way,
though its canons involve suppressing the scholar’s self-reflection.
In any event, the Confessions continues to work on readers in the
ways Augustine designed it to: the meditative work continues to en-
gender meditation on it and on ourselves. One strategy in Augus-
tine’s design involved using key words with a range of analogous
meanings, thereby inviting us to sort them out.
Because every theme in the Confessions should be understood in
relation to the Church, or its allegory in Book 13, we should note
the connection between the Church and conversion. The structure of
a Christian-Platonist ascent implies that its highest level articulates,
as far as possible, its ultimate ground. Obviously, the Church was
created by God to foster conversion. Conversion is the purpose of
the Church, which is God’s eternal purpose for creation (13.34.49).

Yet the allegory on the Church in Book 13 not only points up the
theme of conversion but also enacts it. In the previous chapter, I
showed how the allegory presents itself as inspired: the tone, style,
pace, and subject of Augustine the narrator’s exposition of Genesis is
suddenly and radically altered in the gap between chapter 11 and
chapter 12. The inspired narrator crowds together biblical quota-
tions from both testaments and completes, in twenty-seven chapters,
an exposition of the whole creation story, while before it took him
seventy-two chapters (11.3–13.11) to reach the edge of verse 3. The
narrator’s being inspired by the Holy Spirit enacts conversion and
the Church in a heightened way at the height of his ascent. More-
over, his allegorical exposition “converts” the story of creation into
the story of the creation of the Church, finding “all of Scripture,”
from Creation to Apocalypse, in the story of the first seven days. He
begins by treating creation as conversion, for the formless matter of
our unbelief receives “the form of doctrine” and we are turned from
darkness to light by the “Let there be light” of Christ (13.12.13).
Every “day” in his allegory turns on some form of conversion be-
cause his subject, the Church, is the fostering mother of conversion
in her children. The highest level of Augustine the narrator’s ascent
treats conversion in an ultimate way, as God’s universal intention for
human beings enacted throughout all history, from Creation to
Apocalypse. The allegory in Book 13 thereby takes up the topic of
conversion more extensively and enacts it more intensely than any
other comparable part of the Confessions, even Book 8.
Analogy and Reconfigured Understanding:

Memory and Conversion
So far, I have limited my illustration of analogous meanings to
Books 1–9 and Book 13, ignoring Books 10–12. The Christian-
Platonist ascent, I have argued, creates a hierarchy of levels, creating
a hierarchy of analogous meanings. Because the ascent is construct-
Analogy and Reconfigured Understanding 143
ed with a moving viewpoint, key words come to have new meanings

on different levels, and every key word or theme should be under-
stood in relation to the highest level, its ultimate ground in the
work. “Reconfigured understanding” is simply another way of
speaking about “analogy” and the dialectic engendered by prefigur-
ing and fulfillment in the Confessions. When a new meaning for a
key word or theme emerges, the hierarchy of analogous meanings is
altered, and the relations between the various meanings is thereby
reconfigured. Likewise, earlier passages come to have new meanings
when reread in light of later passages. We notice new aspects of
Book 2 when we reconsider it in the light of Book 8, and these new
aspects reconfigure our understanding of Book 2. We can recognize
a pattern of prefiguring and fulfillment only in retrospect from a lat-
er passage, and this recognition reconfigures our previous under-
standing.
I want to show how “memory” in Books 10–13 is reconfigured
by the moving viewpoint of the narrator’s Christian-Platonist as-
cent.12 In his movement from Book 10 to Book 11, Augustine’s un-
derstanding of memory is explicitly reconfigured, and so it is well
understood. The spatial images so prominent in Book 10, where
memory is likened to a storehouse and remembering to a search for
objects within it, disappear in Book 11, where memory becomes an
aspect in our experience of time: present attention to things past
(11.28). But because the structure of Augustine the narrator’s Chris-
tian-Platonist ascent is not well understood, scholars have not
grasped how memory is implicitly reconfigured in Books 12 and 13.
In other words, “memory” has a hierarchy of analogous mean-
ings in the Confessions. Though Augustine the narrator does not re-
12. For “memory” in Book 10 alone, see Vernon J. Bourke, Augustine’s Love of
Wisdom. For memory more generally in Augustine, see John A. Mourant, St. Au-
gustine on Memory (Villanova, Pa.: Villanova University Press, 1979). For Augus-
tine’s thinking about “memory” in relation to his autobiography, see James Ol-
ney, Memory and Narrative: The Weave of Life-Writing, pp. 1–100.
consider “memory” in light of the understandings reached in Books

12 and 13, Augustine the author understood the implications of a
Christian-Platonist ascent and expected us to explore them. When
we do so, we find that Books 10–13 progressively articulate what is
tacitly operative with respect to memory in Books 1–9. This is just
what one would expect in an ascent to levels progressively higher,
and therefore deeper and more fundamental. The progressively re-
configured understandings of memory in Books 10–13 articulate
the ground of memory functioning in Books 1–9. Exploring the
analogy of memory on these levels, then, will also enable us to see
how the analogy of conversion functions in Books 10–12. Conver-
sion is a crucial theme for the Confessions as a whole, and Augusine
the author implied analogous forms of conversion for every stage of
the narrator’s ascent.
In Books 1–9 memory is not a problem, as it is in Book 10. The
problem in Books 1–9 lies in understanding the memories that
arise in Augustine the narrator’s dialogue with God. The narrator in-
sists that God is helping him remember events he thought he had
forgotten (2.7.15, 9.7.16), and God also helps him to understand
them because “the living memory [viva recordatio] of my soul lies be-
fore [him]” (2.9.17). At the same time, the narrator’s struggle to un-
derstand many of these memories, or certain aspects of them, is am-
ply documented. In Book 10, however, the narrator turns from
understanding memories to understanding memory itself. He at-
tempts to understand the ground of his memories in Books 1–9,
and this proves problematic, even paradoxical. His identity lies in
his memory, but he cannot grasp it: memory cannot grasp itself, the
self cannot understand itself fully (10.16–17). He longs for “the
happy life” even though he has never experienced it, so “the happy
life” is somehow present in memory and not present at the same
time (10.20–23). He longs for God and searches for God in his
memory (10.23–27, 40). Although Augustine the narrator is praying
over these problems, he treats memory spatially, as a storehouse of
images and ideas to be searched by a human being. The search in

Books 1–9, however, was both human and divine.
The movement from memory (Book 10) to time (Book 11)
marks the narrator’s ascent, for time is the precondition of memory.
By the end of the narrator’s inquiry into time, memory has been re-
configured as a psychological aspect of our experience of time
(11.28–29). Though the past no longer exists and the future does
not yet exist, they do exist in our experience, as memory and expec-
tation. Memory is our present attention to things past, just as expec-
tation is our present attention to things future. The temporal present
is enacted in our attention to things present. Only the present really
exists, and it exists in our attention, whether to things past (memo-
ry), things present, or things future (expectation).
This understanding of memory and time articulates the ground
of Books 1–9. Augustine the narrator is exploring his past “now,” in
the unfolding present of his dialogue with God. We do not read the
mere results of an understanding achieved, conclusions with sup-
porting evidence. Rather, we witness the process of Augustine the
narrator’s struggle to understand. The work presents itself as his oral
prayer unfolding “now,” and so we are caught up in the present dra-
ma of his struggle to make sense of his present memories. In the
Confessions, the past is never past, but always present. Augustine the
narrator enacts that presence of things past in Books 1–9 and re-
flects on it at the conclusion of his inquiry into time, in Book 11.
In the previous chapter, we saw that when Augustine the narra-
tor ascends from time in Book 11 to the pretemporal “heaven and
earth” in Book 12, he also progresses from attention (11.28–29) to
will (voluntas), or “intention,” in his discussion of hermeneutics
(12.23.32, 12.24.33, 12.28.38, 12.32.43). Now the will lies deeper
in the soul, as it were, than attention. In Augustine’s understanding,
the will proves the ground of attention, for it directs attention. The
will is the precondition for our ability to attend to anything at all.
To put it differently, we can have no attention without intention,
and intention is a form of willing. Hence, just as memory is explicit-

ly reconfigured as a form of attention, in Book 11, so is it implicitly
reconfigured as a form of willing, in Book 12. Without the will,
there could be no attention or memory.
Hence, the right use of the will, explicitly discussed by Augustine
the narrator at the end of Book 12, implies Augustine the author’s
understanding of the right use of memory. In the narrator’s discus-
sion of hermeneutics, he refuses to consider heretical interpreta-
tions of “heaven and earth” (12.14, 16, 23). The “rule of faith”
therefore implicitly governs his consideration of the different mean-
ings he assembles. As long as different interpretations are in accord
with the faith taught by the Church, they should all be considered
as true. Even two mutually exclusive interpretations may both have
some part of the truth intended by God in the text. Hence, the nar-
rator argues explicitly for “the rule of charity” (12.25.35, 12.30.41).
Interpreters should treat all nonheretical views with charity, for love
is the end or goal of all Scripture. Their desire for truth should not
lead them to the vanity of not loving a fellow Christian who dis-
agrees with their interpretations. The Holy Spirit, God’s love inspir-
ing the Scriptures, made possible diverse true understandings of the
same text, and interpreters should accept these in the concord of
faith and charity.
Right willing, then, is ruled by faith and charity. So, too, do faith
and charity govern the right memory animating Books 1–9. In these
books, Augustine the narrator recalls and scrutinizes his past life
prayerfully, in dialogue with God. His memory is animated by his
faith, evident in his profuse allusions to the Bible. His dialogue with
God is also animated by charity, with God’s love for him engender-
ing his love for God. The narrator is often acutely critical of the
young Augustine, his unconverted past self, precisely because he
seeks present growth in charity by understanding rightly his past
failures. In other words, the rules of faith and charity in interpreting
Scripture, discussed by Augustine the narrator in Book 12, implicitly
animate his present interpretation of his past, in Books 1–9. In his

prayerful dialogue with God about his past, Augustine aims to un-
derstand and to love rightly, in faith and in charity.
In this light, the reconfiguration of memory in Book 13 proves
obvious. God willed (voluisti; 13.34.48) creation and Scripture for
the Church, his eternal purpose for humankind. Right memory, ani-
mated by faith and charity, is memory in the Church, memory in ac-
cord with God’s eternal will. Books 1–9 are in accord with the
Church in too many ways to enumerate fully. But the Church is ob-
viously the ground of Augustine the narrator’s faith and charity. Her
Scriptures fill his prose, just as his dialogue with God enacts the
Church on every page. Moreover, as God’s purpose for humankind,
the Church is also the ground of his restless heart: “you have made
us toward yourself and our heart is restless until it rests in you”
(1.1.1; my emphasis). In this sentence, the plural “us” has a single
“heart,” as though all human beings were a single being, fulfilled in
Christ, the new Adam. This famous sentence in the Confessions’s first
chapter implies the Church, treated in its final book. In the work’s
end is its beginning, for its ultimate ground lies in God’s purpose
for creating, intimated in its first chapter.
The Church, then, is the ultimate form of memory in the Confes-
sions, because it is the ultimate ground of Augustine the narrator’s
ascent. From this perspective, we might hazard two analogies: the
Church can be understood, in a certain sense, as “the memory of
God” (memoria dei), and so, too, can the Bible. Augustine the narra-
tor’s ascent from memory, in Book 10, to exploring the Scriptures, in
Book 11, tacitly invites us to reflect on the Bible as a kind of divine
memory, made available to human beings through revelation. The
culmination of his ascent in the theme of the Church suggests that
the Church, too, functions as a memoria dei. Readers today would
probably not find these two analogies interesting or fruitful. But Au-
gustine’s contemporaries experienced “memory” as a far more fun-
damental and exalted use of the mind than we do. A capacious
memory was not only far more useful in a time when books and
writing materials were scarce compared to today, but it was also
held to signify moral capacity.13 A modern scholar could labor to re-
construct what the Bible or the Church as “the memory of God”
might mean to late antique readers, but they would have felt its res-
onance directly and found it a fruitful analogy for meditation.
In any event, these analogies are warranted by the conclusion of
the inquiry into time in Book 11. They are not as far-fetched as per-
haps they seem. Moreover, this conclusion tacitly converts the classi-
cal and Platonist understanding of time to a biblical and Christian
one. In this way, Book 11 enacts an analogous form of conversion at
its own level, “the conversion of time.” Exploring this will enable us
to see how Augustine the author pointed to the Bible and the
Church as forms of “the memory of God.”
Augustine the narrator’s inquiry into time begins with the ques-
tion “What is time?” (11.14.17), but it eventually explores a related
one, “What is eternity?”14 Time can be defined only in relation to
nontime, and for a late antique thinker nontime indicates eternity,
rather than space. Eternity, to be sure, cannot be defined, but it can
be understood by analogy, and the most important understanding
in ancient philosophy is articulated in Plato’s Timaeus: “time is a
moving image of eternity” (37d–e). Here the model is cosmological.
Timaeus has been explaining the two movements governing the
heavenly bodies in the geocentric cosmos, the Motion of the Same
and the Motion of the Different in the spherical universe (32c–37d).
Eternity is the still point of the turning world: it remains ever at one,
while time is its endlessly moving image (37d–e). Just as a center
13. See Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory, esp. pp. 1–13.
14. See J. F. Callahan, Four Views of Time in Ancient Philosophy (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948) and Augustine and the Greek Philosophers
(Villanova, Pa.: Villanova University Press, 1967), pp. 74–93; Roland J. Teske,
S.J., Paradoxes of Time; John M. Quinn, “Four Faces of Time in St. Augustine”; and
Katherin A. Rogers, “St. Augustine on Time and Eternity.”
point generates a circle, though the center is without dimension

while the circle exists in two dimensions, so does eternity generate
time, which endlessly moves in circular imitation of eternity’s invisi-
ble stillness. Platonists understood the relation between time and
eternity on analogy with a geometrical-cosmological model.
Augustine, however, converts this understanding to a biblical
model. Time remains akin to “a moving image of eternity,” but the
new understanding links eternity with Christian Providence. After
explaining that past, present, and future time actually lie in our ex-
perience of memory, attention, and expectation (11.28.37), Augus-
tine the narrator illustrates these with the analogy of reciting a
psalm:
I am going to say a psalm that I have memorized [novi]. Before I be-

gin, my expectation is directed toward the whole. After I have begun
reciting it, however, whatever I have recited is in the past, and is cov-
ered in my memory. The life of the this act of mine is now stretched in
two ways: into my memory, on account of what I have said, and into
my expectation, on account of what I am going to say. Nevertheless,
my attention remains on the present, through which [present] the fu-
ture is drawn to become the past. The more the recitation advances,
the less is held by [future] expectation and the more belongs in [past]
memory, until [future] expectation is wholly consumed and the
whole completed act will have crossed into [past] memory. And what
happens in the psalm as a whole happens in each of its parts and in
each of its syllables; so also [it happens] in a longer act, of which that
psalm is perhaps a part; so also [it happens] in the whole life of a hu-
man being, whose parts are all his acts; so also [it happens] in the
whole age of the children of human beings, whose parts are all the
lives of human beings. (11.28.38)
The final words state that the analogy holds at a series of levels: not
only for a person’s whole life but even for all of human history. Au-
gustine thereby implies that his knowledge of the psalm as a whole
is analogous to God’s providential grasp of all human history, and
he later makes this connection explicit (11.31.41).
Just as the narrator’s knowledge of the psalm governs his recita-

tion of it, so does Divine Providence govern history. The narrator’s
knowledge before he begins to recite is analogous to God’s eternal
knowledge before he creates the world: each has a simultaneous
grasp of the whole with all its parts. Once the narrator begins to re-
cite, the syllables he utters are analogous to events in time: material
and perceptible, coming into being and passing away (cf. 4.10–11).
Just as his recitation is governed, moment by moment, by his mem-
orized knowledge of the whole psalm, so is human history always
governed by Divine Providence. The period of the recitation is fixed,
as is the period of universal history between Creation and Apoca-
lypse. The closer the narrator is to the beginning of the psalm, the
more that remains to be recited. Similarly, the closer we are to the
(past) Creation, the more (future) time remains for the world’s exis-
tence. At the close of the recitation, the sounding syllables cease,
and this is analogous to the end of time, for God not only created
the world but has fixed its limit. Just as the narrator begins and ends
with his silent knowledge of the psalm as a whole, which governs its
recitation, so does all time emerge from and end in the eternal still-
ness of God, whose Providence governs its unfolding.
Here, as in Plato, time is a moving image of eternity, but Augus-
tine’s eternity is Divine Providence, knowing the events of history in
intimate detail. Augustine converts “time is a moving image of eter-
nity” into “history is an unfolding image of Providence.” The model
for God’s Providence comes from the structure of the Bible, which
begins with the creation of the world and closes with its end, when
God will “make all things new” (Rv 21:5). In Plato, time proves the
image of eternity as the circle is the image of its dimensionless
center, or the revolving sphere is the moving image of its axis. The
image can be visualized, and perhaps Plato used an armillary
sphere, a mechanical model of his geocentric cosmos, when writing
the Timaeus. This circular analogy features cycle and recurrence. Au-
gustine’s analogy, however, features linear unfolding, from Creation
to Apocalypse. Classical recurrence is transformed into Christian

history, and classical eternity becomes the loving Providence of a
personal God. History is understood on the analogy of a literary
work, a vast sacred poem imagined in every intimate detail by its
Author, who holds it in his “memory” while it unfolds in time.
The Bible is our revealed model for the character and structure
of this history under Providence. The narrator’s analogy of a memo-
rized psalm with Providence suggests that the Bible proves analo-
gous to “the memory of God.” When Augustine the narrator pro-
gresses from reflecting on memory, in Book 10, to examining the
Bible, in Book 11, he ascends from the theme of human memory to
that of divine memory. In Book 13, the narrator finds all Scripture
and human history implied in the Church, as God’s purpose for cre-
ation. Hence, just as purpose directs act, so does God’s purpose in
the Church guide all history under Providence. The Church, in its
eternal sense, also proves a kind of “memory of God.” These two
analogous meanings of memory—the Bible and the Church as the
“memory of God”—are implied by Augustine the narrator’s ascent
from Book 10 to Books 11–13. We probably find them odd and un-
fruitful. Augustine’s contemporaries, with their different sense of
memory and its value, would have found them odd yet fruitful. Im-
plied by the structure of Augustine the narrator’s ascent, they are di-
rectly indicated by his conclusions in Book 11.
Since the climax of Book 11 implies a “conversion of time,” we
might ask whether Book 10 implies a conversion of memory. I ar-
gued earlier that the hymn to divine Beauty (10.27.38) marks this
conversion within Book 10. Before it, “memory” is oriented to the
things it contains. During chapter 27 and afterward, however, the
narrator recognizes God’s presence in his mind as its enabling pow-
er. The context implies God’s presence in the narrator’s memory. In
my view, Augustine the author invited us to reflect on the possibility
of a “conversion of memory” by the very structure of his narrator’s
Christian-Platonist ascent.
In a larger sense, Books 1–9 themselves embody Augustine the

narrator’s “conversion of memory.” Although a conversion story
logically requires a conversion, mere conversion itself does not
guarantee a fully Christian story. As Peter Brown points out, “Had
Augustine written his autobiography in 386, it would have been a
very different book: different layers of his past experience would
have struck the new-fledged Platonist as important.”15 Though Au-
gustine first had to become a Christian in order to tell the story of
how he became one, that story could not become fully Christian un-
til his memory grew so imbued with Scripture that he could reflect
biblically, as it were, on himself and his past. Augustine, it has been
said, wrote not merely in Latin but in psalms.16 In Books 1–9, verses
from the Bible, especially from the Psalms, come readily from Au-
gustine’s praying voice. In the years since his conversion, he has
filled his memory with Scripture and his life with reflection upon it.
He can thereby pray over certain events from his past with a “con-
verted memory,” for he sees them anew in light of his years of med-
itating on the Bible. Moreover, the memory in act in the Confessions
is not a merely human faculty but a divine-human interaction, for
God leads Augustine the narrator to recall and understand events he
thought he had forgotten (2.9.17, 9.7.16).
In other words, conversion in the Confessions is an ongoing
process, implied in the Christian-Platonist ascent, not simply a cru-
cial event in one’s life. It requires the continuing dedication of the
whole human being. Hence, conversion of the intellect and the will
must be completed by conversion of the memory. Memory, intel-
lect, and will subsume the whole mind or soul, the whole human
being in properly human action.17 After his conversion in 386, Au-
15. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo, p. 170.

16. Mary Carruthers, Book of Memory, p. 88.
17. In Augustine’s later work On the Trinity, memory, understanding (intelli-
gentia), and will provide a psychological model for exploring the Trinity, begin-
ning in Book 10.
gustine was a Christian but he did not yet have the full Christian
memory he acquired by 397, when he began the Confessions. Hence,
though he had a newly Christian orientation, he did not yet have
the Christian self-understanding manifested in Books 1–9. More-
over, that self-understanding is not something fixed and finished,
for Augustine the author did not simply record it, in the manner of
later autobiography. Rather, he created a persona, Augustine the nar-
rator, praying his Confessions and learning about himself and his
past “now,” through his dialogue with God. We see the narrator’s
memory and self-understanding recurrently illumined by grace as
he prays. The continuing process of the conversion of his memory is
manifested “now,” in the dynamism of his unfolding encounter
with God. Augustine the narrator not only records his memory of
conversion but also manifests the conversion of his memory.
Since Book 10 implies a conversion of memory and Book 11 a
conversion of time, we should consider whether Book 12 contains
some form of conversion as well. There, the conversion we witness
is hermeneutical: Book 12 tacitly reconfigures our normal under-
standing of literal truth in interpreting. According to this under-
standing, there can be only one true literal interpretation of a bibli-
cal text. This one true interpretation may have many component
aspects, but they should be mutually compatible. Perhaps different
interpreters see different aspects of this one literal truth, but in prin-
ciple all true interpretations can be reconciled with one another in a
larger, coordinated understanding. In other words, mutually exclu-
sive literal interpretations cannot all be literally true, at least in the
same sense of “literal truth.” Moreover, the very notion of “literal
truth” seems to entail univocal understanding: there is only one true
sense of “literal truth,” and there is only one literally true inter-
pretation of a text, however complex its components may be. Be-
cause literal interpretation tends toward univocality in its self-
understanding, it tends to be literalist.
This understanding should sound familiar, for it is shared by
many of our contemporaries. It has recurred, tacitly or explicitly, in

recent debates on hermeneutics and literary theory. It is the intellec-
tual spring of acrimony in interpretive debates, an acrimony with a
long history in our tradition: the odium humanisticum merely contin-
ued the odium theologicum. The interpreter’s love for the truth there-
by mingles with his desire for recognition, and the rivalry, pride,
and envy it entails.
Augustine cuts through this acrimony at its root. Most obvious-
ly, he argues that as charity is the goal of Scripture, so differing inter-
preters should treat one another with charity (12.25, 12.30). But
this exhortation is grounded in his reconfiguring of what counts as
literal truth, for he is willing to admit that incompatible literal inter-
pretations may all be true, in some sense or other, as long as they are
not heretical. He excludes heretical interpretations (12.14.17,
12.16.23) from those he assembles. He recognizes that all those he
assembles are true, because they prove consistent with the faith of
the Church. He cannot be sure which ones Moses had in mind
when writing Genesis 1:1, though he is confident that whatever
Moses meant was true and was stated appropriately (12.24.33). A
few chapters later, however, Augustine the narrator makes a bolder
assertion: Moses grasped whatever truths we have been able to find,
as well as those we have yet to find (12.31.42). Yet even if Moses saw
but a single true meaning, the Holy Spirit who inspired the text
comprehends all its true meanings (12.32.43). Genesis 1:1 has
many different true literal meanings, some of which are incompati-
ble with others.
In other words, as a literal interpreter of Scripture, Augustine the
narrator is not a literalist. His hermeneutics of literal interpretation
proves fundamentally ecclesial and open. Whatever the Church does
not exclude as heretical is true. Any literal interpretation that does
not entail heresy may be considered to be true, however incompati-
ble it may prove with other nonheretical interpretations. The meas-
ure of true interpretation is not univocal, internal consistency but
the faith of the Church. This faith, according to Augustine, is funda-

mentally open to new understandings of any biblical text, as long as
they do not entail heresy. Augustine’s argument implies that there
are different true senses of “literal truth,” and these do not need to
be defined or regulated. As long as interpreters are rightly oriented in
faith and charity, their results are true, however incompatible they
may be. The inspiration of Scripture encompasses multiplicity and
even dissonance. What it excludes is heresy and uncharity.
In sum, then, conversion is not only recorded in various forms
in Books 1–9 but also enacted at every level of Augustine the narra-
tor’s ascent. With respect to Book 10, the Confessions manifests a
conversion of memory. The final chapters of Book 11 convert Pla-
tonist thought on eternity and time, on the analogy of the cosmos,
to Christian Providence and history, on the analogy of the Bible.
The last section of Book 12 reconfigures the notion of “literal truth”
in the interpretation of Scripture: univocal, literalist conformity
with the text is replaced by conformity with the faith of the Church,
where disparate literal meanings are all true. Finally, as we saw earli-
er, the allegory on the Church in Book 13 takes conversion as its
theme and enacts it intensively, in several different ways. Conver-
sion is enacted in the Confessions, in analogous ways at various lev-
els, because it is taking place in every sentence as Augustine the nar-
rator turns to God in his unfolding prayer.
In short, the Confessions is a conversion story, not simply be-
cause it tells a story about conversion in Books 1–9, but also be-
cause it manifests conversion at every level of the narrator’s ascent
and enacts it on every page in his prayer. If we think of conversion
in the work as one or more events recorded in Books 1–9, we are
tethered to the utterances of Augustine the narrator and we have un-
derestimated the historical Augustine’s thought. We have missed the
analogous understandings created by Augustine the author in the
moving viewpoint of the Christian-Platonist ascent.
Coda: The Hermeneutics of Meditation

It may be objected that all these forms of “conversion” in the
Confessions emerge from uncontrolled interpretation, that this mul-
tiplication of analogous meanings merely displays my ingenuity,
not Augustine’s thought. To this objection, I reply that the hermen-
eutics of Book 12 have guided my exploration of the Confessions.18
Though I have multiplied possibilities of meaning in the work, all
these meanings prove literal and nonheretical. Analogous meanings
are all literal ones; they are not allegorical, moral, or anagogical.
Though I have used the analogy of prefiguring and fulfillment in
Christian interpretation of the Bible to treat the dialectic between
Book 2 and Book 8, every meaning in that context is literal, too. The
young Augustine’s significant lack of weeping in Book 2 proves to be
as concrete as his weeping in Book 8, albeit not so obvious. The var-
ious forms of friendship in Books 1–9, both “worldly” and spiritual,
are represented in concrete narrative detail. The question “Is Augus-
tine our friend?” is implied literally by the dialectic of Books 2 and
8, as well as by the literary strategies of the Confessions. In pointing
to all these literal meanings, I have not argued any heretical views
and have thereby remained faithful to the hermeneutics of Book 12.
The various meanings adduced in this chapter emerge by con-
necting one text in the Confessions with various other texts: different
literal patterns create different contexts for different literal meanings.
This is precisely how Augustine the narrator finds the different
meanings of “heaven and earth” in Book 12. One interpretation, for
example, understands “heaven and earth” to express the whole
visible universe, whose creation is to be recorded in detail by days
(12.17.24). The first verse of Genesis would thereby function as a ti-
tle for the subsequent story of creation. Augustine the narrator, how-
18. Taking the allegory in Book 13 as a model would entail a kind of inter-
pretation that none of us could regard as scholarly, even though Augustine of-
fered it as the highest kind of interpretation in the Confessions.
Coda 157
ever, correlates “heaven” with the “heaven of heaven” which is God’s

(12.8–9; cf. Ps 115:16), and so he interprets “heaven” as the invisible
universe of the angels. In a univocal and literalist hermeneutics,
“heaven” in Genesis 1:1 cannot mean both the visible sky and the
invisible angelic creation. But in Augustine’s literal hermeneutics in
Book 12, it does have these meanings and several others besides.
Augustine himself taught us how he would have the Confessions
interpreted by telling us, through his narrator, his aim in writing: “I
would prefer to write in such a way that my words would express
whatever portion of truth each person could take from these writ-
ings, rather than that I should put down one true opinion so clearly
that it would exclude all others, as long as there was no false teach-
ing to offend me” (12.31.42). Augustine preferred many true under-
standings of a particular issue rather than “one true opinion” exclu-
sive of other truths. Modern scholars of Augustine, however, have
their roots in philology and history, on the one hand, and Scholas-
tic theology and analytic philosophy, on the other, and so they have
tended to seek univocal facts and doctrines in the Confessions. They
assume that the historical Augustine wrote the various books of the
Confessions directly in his own voice, to express “one true opinion so
obviously as to exclude others,” and they aim to discover his view
and to explore it critically. In my view, this scholarship, for all its
valuable results, has unduly limited our understanding of the work
because it does not understand the Confessions’s genre and structure.
Scholars’ literalist presuppositions have projected a literalist Augus-
tine.
The Confessions itself, in contrast, urges us to look for many dif-
ferent literal meanings in the work. It demands meditative, rather
than literalist, interpretation. In my view, Augustine the author exer-
cised superb artistic control over the work, and his grasp of its pat-
terns and their meanings was complete. Nevertheless, from his per-
spective, as long as interpreters adhere to the hermeneutics of Book
12, they cannot go wrong in reading the Confessions. They might ad-
duce meanings beyond Augustine the author’s ken, not to speak of

beyond his narrator’s, yet as long as these meanings are nonhereti-
cal, they are true. The Confessions presents itself as the narrator’s un-
revised dialogue with God unfolding in an ongoing present, and
though Augustine the author certainly revised it, the work took
shape through the author’s ceaseless meditation. In other words, the
work’s self-presentation as the narrator’s oral prayer being guided by
God “now” proves a figure for Augustine the author’s composition
and revision. Augustine would have us understand that just as the
Holy Spirit inspired the biblical text and inspires all its faithful in-
terpreters, so does the Spirit guide Augustine the narrator’s sponta-
neous prayer, for He inspired the author’s composition and revision
of the Confessions. Hence, we should interpret it along the lines Au-
gustine the narrator lays out for the interpretation of Scripture in
Book 12.
In order to do this, scholars need to understand the structure
and genre of the Confessions, a Christian-Platonist ascent unfolding
“now” in Augustine the narrator’s dialogue with God. The narrator’s
conclusions are rightly understood to be Augustine the author’s, but
the historical Augustine’s thought in the work far surpasses his nar-
rator’s utterances. Until scholars grasp the distinction between Au-
gustine the author and Augustine the narrator, the Confessions will
remain the most underinterpreted great work in our literary and
philosophical tradition.
CHAPTER 4
MEDITATIVE MOVEMENT IN
ANSELM’S PROSLOGION
I N H I S P R E F A C E T O T H E Proslogion, Anselm describes the

genesis of the work. After writing the Monologion, “a complex se-
quence of arguments,” Anselm sought to discover “a single argu-
ment” sufficient to show “that God truly is .l.l. and the other things
we believe concerning the divine substance” (S 93). This effort pre-
occupied him, and his failure to find this elusive “single argument”
eventually made him so desperate that he tried to give it up. One
day, however, “in the very conflict of my thoughts,” he discovered
what he had been seeking and it gave him joy. Hoping to communi-
cate something of this joy to others, he wrote the Proslogion “under
the guise [sub persona] of someone striving to raise his mind to con-
template God and seeking to understand what he believes” (Preface,
S 93–94).
With these words, Anselm clearly distinguished himself, as au-
thor, from the literary persona he created, the praying voice in the
Proslogion, whom I call Anselm the narrator. “Sub persona” is an im-
age derived from the theater: “under the character,” even “under the
mask.” Anselm the narrator is a dramatic character created by the
historical Anselm, the author. Scholars have called both these figures
“Anselm” because they examine the work to discover the historical
Anselm’s views, and they assume he expressed these fully and direct-
ly. I distinguish Anselm the narrator from Anselm the author for two
reasons. First, the work presents itself as a Christian-Platonist ascent,
a raising of the mind “to contemplate God.” Anselm the narrator
159
160 Meditative Movement in Anselm’s Proslogion
proves to be a pilgrim figure on a journey, and we want to under-

stand the dramatic structure of his journey. We cannot understand
the work, with all that Anselm the author aimed to communicate to
us, without understanding its genre and structure. Second, this dra-
matic structure has philosophical implications. Anselm the narra-
tor’s explicit conclusions may be ascribed to Anselm the author, as
scholars have always done. Nevertheless, Anselm the author’s under-
standings in the work are not limited to his narrator’s utterances.
The structure of the work as a Christian-Platonist ascent implies that
the narrator’s earlier understandings are reconfigured by later in-
sights. Anselm the narrator does not look back to work out the de-
tails, for he is intent on raising his mind to God. Anselm the author
left this meditative labor to his readers. If we wish to understand the
mind of Anselm the author in the Proslogion, we must look beyond
his narrator’s utterances to the reconfigured understandings implied
in the work as a whole.
Let us review the presuppositions of the work’s genre. Anselm
the narrator is a literary figure, praying in an ongoing literary pres-
ent. Every time we read the Proslogion, he is speaking, and so I de-
scribe his activity with the present tense. By definition, his thoughts
are explicit at every point in the work. In other words, the con-
sciousness of Anselm the narrator is an inference from what the text
is saying at any point. The narrator’s consciousness is inferred not
only from what he is saying, its content, but also from how he says
it, his tone or manner. Most of the time, for example, he poses ques-
tions and works out an analysis, but sometimes he asserts his views
through rhetorical questions, as in chapters 5 and 24, and even rises
to bold assertions, as in chapters 22 and 23. A different style of as-
sertion indicates a different kind of assertion. He also laments his
failure to experience God, especially in chapters 14–18. As the
Proslogion unfolds, Anselm the narrator experiences a variety of feel-
ings in his quest for God, from anguished longing to overflowing
joy. These feelings are as much an index to his consciousness as his
Meditative Movement in Anselm’s Proslogion 161
thoughts: his style and tone prove as crucial to his quest as his argu-
ments.
The work presents itself as spoken in an address—the Preface
calls it an alloquium, a “speaking to” (S 94). Most often the narrator
is speaking to God, though he occasionally addresses himself. Like
Augusine’s Confessions, then, the Proslogion presents itself as an unre-
vised oral prayer, “unrevised” because an oral work is unrevisable. It
unfolds in the ongoing present of its “original composition” by
Anselm the narrator, a pilgrim figure praying in his effort to raise his
mind to God. This self-presentation is a fiction created by Anselm
the author, a writer who designed and revised the work to enact his
narrator’s prayerful quest. As a Christian prayer, the narrator’s quest
presupposes that God is not only its End but also its Origin, and
hence its grace-giving Partner. Like the Confessions, therefore, the
Proslogion presents itself as “a dialogue with God,” even though it is
“a dialogue in one voice.” We hear only the narrator’s voice, but
from the content and tones of his utterance as he journeys on his as-
cent, we recognize that God responds to his struggle. Anselm the
narrator achieves new understandings in the course of his quest; he
longs to experience God, and in the end he is led to a foretaste of
the beatific vision and its overflowing joy. As he is led to discoveries,
his journey to God takes surprising turns. Moreover, we make this
journey with him. We cannot read the Proslogion without praying his
prayer. Every reader necessarily impersonates Anselm the narrator,
and hence we do not merely follow his journey, as in reading a
third-person narrative, but we also make it ourselves. The surprising
turns in his prayerful journey surprise us as well.
Anselm the author, in contrast, was a historical human being,
and I write about him in the past tense. By definition, he stood be-
yond the journey he created: for him, it contained no surprises. He
designed and composed the Proslogion in a sequence of operations
that is beyond our reconstruction, because his working papers no
longer exist. We know the sequence of Anselm the narrator’s “origi-
nal composition” of the work, from chapter 1 through chapter 26,

but we know nothing of Anselm the author’s. We know what
Anselm the narrator thinks and feels at every point in his quest; we
do not know what Anselm the author thought and felt as he com-
posed, arranged, and revised its various stages. Anselm the narrator
is intent on raising his mind to the contemplation of God; Anselm
the author intended a literary-philosophical fiction enacting his nar-
rator’s journey. Anselm the narrator’s spontaneous affects are
Anselm the author’s deliberate effects.
Hence, in the Proslogion, Anselm the author never presented his
own understandings directly. What he presented directly was the
quest of Anselm the narrator, and the narrator’s understanding of an
issue always unfolds as a stage in his quest. To be sure, the Proslogion
indicates the historical Anselm’s understanding “that God truly is,
and that he is the highest good, needing no other, and which all
things need for their being and well-being,” and so on (Preface, S
93). The famous argument in chapters 2–4 was his original compo-
sition and is rightly ascribed to him. Yet this ascription lifts the argu-
ment out of context and sunders it from the Proslogion as a whole,
where it appears as an early stage in the narrator’s ascent to God.
This analytical move has a long history. Although it proves useful
for certain purposes, understanding Anselm’s achievement in the
whole Proslogion is not one of them.
My point may be further substantiated by a meaning of the
Latin argumentum that scholars have rarely commented on. Anselm
presented the Proslogion as the fruit of his quest to find “a single ar-
gument [unum argumentum] sufficient by itself to show that God tru-
ly exists .l.l. and whatever else we believe regarding the divine sub-
stance” (Preface, S 93). Now argumentum meant not only
“argument,” in our sense, but also “the plot” of a literary work, “a
narrative, story, especially a fable or fictional story,” as well as the
story “told” by a work of visual art. This literary line of meaning for
argumentum would have been well known from its use in school
Meditative Movement in Anselm’s Proslogion 163
texts, like the Aeneid (7.791) and the Metamorphoses (6.69).1 Indeed,
when we combine the philosophical meaning of argumentum as “ar-
gument” with its literary meaning as “plot, narrative, story,” we have
a more accurate description of the Proslogion. To be sure, it contains
passages of argument, of sustained ideational development over
several chapters. But it also contains passages dramatizing failure,
anguish, supplication, leaps of discovery, joy, and gratitude. The
work thereby presents the drama of Anselm the narrator’s philo-
sophical and theological quest.
The present chapter aims to understand Anselm the author’s lit-
erary and philosophical achievement in the Proslogion as a whole. It
unfolds in four sections. The first section, “The Structure of the As-
cent,” describes the structure of Anselm the narrator’s ascent over
the whole work: the stages of his movement or, if you will, the se-
quence of acts in the literary and philosophical drama of his quest
for God. The second section, “Patterns in the Ascent,” illustrates
Anselm’s subtle artistry in orchestrating his narrator’s progress, not
only in the content of his thoughts but also in the tones of his utter-
ance. The third section, “Prayer and Understanding,” reflects on the
dramatic and philosophical role of certain prayers within the work.
Gregory Schufreider has shown in some detail how the long prayer
of chapter 1 sets the stage for the famous argument in chapters 2–4.2
I work along similar lines with the narrator’s hymns of praise (chap-
ters 9, 14, and 16) and with his reflection on the failure of his quest
1. See argumentum, definitions 5 and 6, in the Oxford Latin Dictionary, edited

by P. G. W. Glare (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), p. 168. In Aeneid 7.791, argu-
mentum ingens refers to the “huge picture” on Turnus’s shield, telling the story of
Juno’s revenge on Io. See Virgil, The Aeneid of Virgil: Books 7–12, edited with In-
troduction and Notes by R. D. Williams (London: Macmillan, 1973). In Meta-
morphoses 6.69, argumentum refers to the stories told in the tapestries woven by
Minerva and Arachne. See Ovid, Metamorphoses, Books I–VIII, with an English
translation by Frank Justus Miller, 3rd ed., revised by G. P. Goold, Loeb Classical
Library 42 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977).
2. Gregory Schufreider, Confessions of a Rational Mystic, pp. 97–112.
(chapters 14–18). Together, these three sections clarify the rationale

of Anselm the narrator’s ascent over the whole Proslogion.
The fourth and final section, “Reconfigured Understandings,”
points to Anselm the author’s philosophical achievement in the
work as a whole. These understandings are not stated by Anselm the
narrator, but instead are implied by Anselm the author’s use of
the genre and structure of the Christian-Platonist ascent. I call these
implied understandings “meditative,” to distinguish them from
Anselm the narrator’s explicit “doctrinal” statements. The historical
Anselm’s philosophical achievement in the Proslogion includes yet
surpasses his narrator’s statements. The work not only unfolds in a
meditative style but also implies meditative meanings. Anselm in-
tended his readers to notice the stages of his narrator’s ascent and
then to reflect on how earlier understandings are related to later
ones. These relations are not explored by Anselm the narrator, but
Anselm the author understood them and deliberately left them tac-
it. In the Proslogion, he created a meditative work and thereby en-
couraged his readers to meditate on it.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the immense body of scholarship
on the Proslogion is largely devoted to the famous argument in chap-
ters 2–4, hardly touching on what follows. The work’s structure as a
whole has received little attention, and its dramatic character none
at all, for that requires distinguishing Anselm the narrator from
Anselm the author. Hence, on the one hand, this chapter points to
new ways of understanding the Proslogion. On the other hand, schol-
ars have shown little interest in thinking about the work after chap-
ter 4. Nevertheless, Anselm’s famous argument is itself reconfigured
in certain ways by later understandings. These do not affect the
question of its logical validity, but they do modify our sense of its
character. Every Christian theology implies an anthropology be-
cause human beings are understood to be made in God’s image. For
this reason, Anselm the author intended chapters 5–26 to affect our
understanding of chapters 2–4 because they clarify the God being
sought, the narrator who seeks Him, and the fool who rejects Him.
Structure of the Ascent 165
Structure of the Ascent

The Proslogion proper consists of twenty-six chapters, and these
are preceded by a Preface. The chapter divisions and titles derive
from Anselm himself, for they are part of the oldest manuscripts,
going back to his time. These manuscripts have a list of numbered
chapters, with their titles, at the beginning. The Proslogion follows in
a continuous text, with the chapter divisions indicated only by
numbers in the margins, without their titles.3 The later practice of
printing the chapter titles before each chapter was not part of the
original tradition. Thus, in these manuscripts the text of the work
proper appears as a long, continuous prayer, with the division into
twenty-six chapters noted marginally, yet not intrusively.
The general pattern of its ascent is well understood. In chapter 1,
Anselm the narrator expresses his wretchedness and his longing to
experience God’s presence. After twelve further chapters exploring
God’s attributes—his maximal existence, highest good, omnis-
cience, omnipotence, and so on—the narrator asks himself, at the
beginning of chapter 14, “What have you found?” (Quid invenisti?; S
111) Here is the center of the Proslogion, the beginning of its second
half.4 He recognizes that he has found something true and certain
about God but he does not experience God—literally, he “does not
3. See Anselm Stolz, “Anselm’s Theology in the Proslogion,” in The Many-

Faced Argument: Recent Studies of the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God,
edited by John Hick and Arthur McGill (New York: Macmillan, 1967), p. 205.
Stolz cites as his source a personal letter from Father Francis P. Schmitt, the edi-
tor of the modern edition of Anselm’s Opera Omnia.
4. See R. A. Herrera, Anselm’s “Proslogion”: An Introduction (Lanham, Md.:
University Press of America, 1979), pp. 15–28, for his analysis of the work’s
structure. He argues on p. 26 that chapter 14 “ushers in a new dimension.” See
also Gregory Schufreider, Confessions, pp. 204–30; and Eric Voegelin, “The Begin-
ning and the Beyond: A Meditation on Truth,” in What Is History? and Other Late
Unpublished Writings, edited with an Introduction by Thomas Hollweck and Paul
Caringella, in The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 28 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State University Press, 1990), pp. 173–232, esp. 191–200 on Anselm.
feel” him (non sentis). Twelve chapters later, however, he exclaims, “I

have found [inveni] a joy that is full, and more than full” (26, S
120–21; my emphasis). In short, in the middle of the work, he has
not found the experience he has been seeking, yet at the end he has
found an experience greater than what he had sought. Similarly, the
famous proposition in chapter 2—God is “that than which nothing
greater can be thought” (S 101)— is surpassed in chapter 15, when
the narrator realizes that “[y]ou are greater than can be thought” (S
112). This is further surpassed by the his realization, in chapter 26,
that God is greater than can be experienced by all the blessed to-
gether in heaven.
The Proslogion can be further divided into parts, to clarify its
structure more fully:
Chapters Title No. of Chapters
1 Prologue 1
2–4 The Famous Argument 3
5–13 Reviewing God’s Attributes 9
14–22 Reflection on and Renewal of the Ascent 9
23–25 Diffusion of the Good: Climax 3
26 Epilogue 1
Though some of these divisions can be debated, and so the work

could be divided differently, they offer a general description of the
whole Proslogion as a coherently planned masterpiece. Scholars gen-
erally agree that chapters 2–4 form a distinct part—let us call it “the
famous argument.” It is framed as a unit, beginning with a prayer
and closing with a thanksgiving, the only explicit “Thanks be to
thee” (Gratias tibi; 4, S 104) in the work. Scholars also agree that the
opening prayer in chapter 2 projects an aim that is completed, not
by the famous argument alone, but only by the work as a whole.
The narrator asks God to help him understand “that you are, as we
believe, and that you are that which we believe” (2, S 101). At the
same time, the argument comprises an important stage in achieving
this aim, as Anselm the narrator appreciates with his thanksgiving at

its end.
Because chapters 2–4 stand as a unit, chapter 1 also proves a
unit by itself—let us call it the narrator’s “Prologue” to his ascent.
Although he begins by addressing himself and commanding him-
self to seek God, most of chapter 1 is a prayer: the narrator asks God
to help him seek and find God. With many echoes from the Psalms,
he longs for God and laments his inability to see God’s face. A son
of Adam, he laments the Fall that deprives him of the experience of
God’s presence, alluding also to “the Prodigal Son” with images of
hunger, want, and misery.5 This long chapter closes with his prayer
“to understand to some extent your truth, which my heart believes
and loves.” His affirmation, “I believe so that I may understand” (1,
S 100), prepares the transition to the opening prayer in chapter 2.
Between the end of the famous proof, in chapter 4, and the nar-
rator’s asking what he has found, in chapter 14, come nine chapters
(5–13) of steady progress in understanding what he believes. Let us
call this part “Reviewing God’s Attributes.” He begins by asking,
“What are you?” (Quid es?), and answers, with a rhetorical question,
that God is “the highest good, alone existing through itself, which
made other things out of nothing” (5, S 104). Through this highest
good is “every good” (omne bonum), and God is “just, truthful,
blessed, and whatever it is better to be than not to be” (5). In the
following chapters, the narrator does not merely list attributes but
explores them analytically: God is omniscient (6), omnipotent (7),
merciful yet impassible (8), and just as well as merciful (9–11). He
gives a summary list of nine attributes at the end of chapter 11. In
chapter 12, he makes a significant shift to considering God’s attrib-
utes, no longer as adjectives, but as nouns, on the basis of His
5. The prodigal son’s return to his father is a traditional image for the ascent
of the soul to God. Augustine used it as such in the Confessions; see Leo C. Ferrari,
“The Theme of the Prodigal Son in Augustine’s Confessions,” Recherches Augustini-
ennes 12 (1977): 105–18.
unique existence “through himself” (cf. 5). The narrator avers not
merely that God is living and wise, but that “you are the life by
which you live, the wisdom by which you are wise” and so on (12, S
110). In chapter 13 he explores God’s infinity, compared to “created
spirits,” for God is uniquely unlimited, in space, and eternal, in time
(S 110–11). In sum, chapters 5–13 review several of God’s attributes
one by one, as it were. In this way, the narrator makes progress in
understanding what he believes about God.
Chapter 14, however, begins with the narrator asking his soul,
“What have you found?” (S 111), and this self-reflective turn clearly
marks the beginning of a new stage in his quest. This part also com-
prises nine chapters (14–22), and could be titled “Reflection on and
Renewal of the Ascent.” As its title implies, it can be further divided,
for “reflection” ends and “renewal” begins in the middle of chapter
18, at the center of these nine chapters. For this reason, I will divide
chapter 18 into two parts, 18A and 18B: the narrator’s “Reflection
on the Ascent” thereby comprises chapters 14–18A, and his “Re-
newal of the Ascent” chapters 18B–22.
In chapter 14, the narrator begins his “Reflection on the Ascent”
by criticizing the understanding he has achieved and his failure to
experience God. This leads him to a series of impassioned utter-
ances over the next chapters: lament for his failure, praise for God’s
greatness, and finally a petition that God assist him in his quest.
This petition comes in the middle of chapter 18: “Help me, on ac-
count of your goodness, O Lord” (18A, S 114). At the close of this
brief petition, the narrator renews his ascent by asking God, “What
are you?” (Quid es?; beginning of 18B, S 114). These very words ear-
lier began chapter 5, leading Anselm the narrator to review God’s at-
tributes (5–13). Here they lead him to reflect on God’s “unity,” and
his analysis, as Schufreider has shown, proves crucial for the success
of his quest.6 The narrator no longer accumulates God’s attributes
6. Gregory Schufreider, Confessions of a Rational Mystic, pp. 213–18.

one by one, but rather explores their interrelating wholeness (18B).

He goes on to consider God’s eternity and transcendence through a
series of questions and analyses (19–21), before he resoundingly af-
firms God’s absolute and simple being and highest goodness (22).
Chapter 23 begins a new stage, chapters 23–25. Anselm the nar-
rator turns to the Trinity, presenting his theology of the relations be-
tween the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This marks a new
stage because he turns (as it were) from the One God of the Old Tes-
tament to the Three Persons of the New Testament. It begins the fi-
nal stage of his ascent, comprising three chapters—call it “Diffusion
of the Good: Climax.” It was a medieval commonplace that “the
good is self-diffusive” (bonum diffusum sui), and chapters 23–25 en-
act the progressive diffusion of God’s goodness within the Trinity
(23) and then to the blessed enjoying the vision of God (24–25).7
While chapter 22 closes with the narrator affirming that God is “the
one and highest good” (unum et summum bonum), chapter 23 begins
“This good is you, O God the Father; this [good] is your Word, that
is your Son” (S 117). Anselm the narrator understands each Person
of the Trinity to be “highest good,” in fact to be “every and one and
all and alone good” (23, S 117).
At the beginning of chapter 24, he commands himself to raise
up his “whole intellect” and consider the quality and quantity of the
Creator’s goodness (S 117), which embraces and surpasses all the
goods in creation; this effort governs chapters 24–25. He names life,
health (or salvation, salus), and wisdom (24, S 118) in chapter 24,
before he goes on to explore how seven goods of the body and sev-
en of the soul will be surpassed “there,” in the vision of God after
the Resurrection of the Dead. (Let us call this first half of the chapter
7. “The good is self-diffusive” is derived from Pseudo-Dionysius the Are-

opagite, The Divine Names, chapter 4, in The “Divine Names” and “Mystical Theolo-
gy,” translated from the Greek with an Introductory Study by John D. Jones, Me-
dieval Philosophical Texts in Translation, No. 21 (Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette
University Press, 1980).
25A, S 118–19.) Then he reflects on the quality and quantity of the

“joy” (gaudium) that the blessed will enjoy (25B, S 120), and his
analysis builds climactically. Each blessed soul will delight in her
own joy; each will delight in the joy of the others; each will rejoice
even more in God’s joy than in her own and that of all the others;
and they all together will so rejoice with their whole heart and mind
and soul that they will not be able to contain so much “fullness of
joy” (S 120). In sum, the goodness of the Trinity (23) surpasses all
created goods (24, 25A) and diffuses such a multiplication of joy
that all the blessed together for eternity will not be sufficient to con-
tain its fullness (25B).8
In chapter 26, Anselm the narrator turns to address God again,
for in chapters 24–25 he is reflecting in God’s presence, as it were,
but not speaking to him. This return to explicit prayer is one mark
distinguishing chapter 26 as a separate part of the Proslogion. Anoth-
er is the narrator’s assertion that “I have found a joy that is full, and
more than full” (S 120–21), for his verb tense argues that he made
the discovery in chapter 25, while he reflects upon it in chapter 26.
In other words, Anselm the narrator’s ascent to God is completed in
25B, and so I consider chapter 26 to be an “Epilogue,” where he re-
flects on the completed ascent and prays that God will lead him one
day to the fullness of joy he has glimpsed. Granted, the two chapters
are closely linked, and the narrator frequently uses the cognate
forms of “joy” (gaudium) and “full” (plenum) in chapter 26, carrying
forward the final words of chapter 25 (plenitudini gaudii; S 120). In
this way, chapter 26 conveys the sense of an aftermath of ecstasy, of
8. Paul Gilbert provides an exemplary analysis of ascent patterns in these

chapters. See “Entrer dans la Joie: Proslogion XXIV–XXVI,” in St. Anselm: A Thinker
for Yesterday and Today, edited by Coloman Viola and Frederick Van Fleteren, Pro-
ceedings of the International Anselm Conference, Centre national de recherche
scientifique, Paris, Texts and Studies in Religion, vol. 90 (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin
Mellen Press, 2002), pp. 217–43. In the table of contents, the essay has a differ-
ent title: “L’homme et son destin: Les trois derniers chapitres du Proslogion.”
the narrator’s standing “on the heights” after the climactic move-
ment of joy in 25B. At the same time, his uses of “joy” and “full”
come in reflection upon 25B and in petition that God may lead him
and us to fulfill Jesus’ promise “that our joy may be full” (Jn 16:24;
26, S 121–22). In other words, the joy envisioned in chapter 25
reaches its climax there and does not increase in chapter 26. Hence,
the final chapter functions as the narrator’s reflective and prayerful
“Epilogue” to his ascent.
Over the course of the whole Proslogion, Anselm the narrator is
led to a fulfillment far beyond his initial aims. “Fulfillment beyond
one’s expectations” is a Christian theme of great antiquity, and it is
enacted in the dramatic structure of Anselm the narrator’s journey.
He begins by wanting to understand (intellegere) what he believes
about God (2), but by the middle of the work (14) he is dissatisfied
with understanding and wants to experience, or “feel” (sentire) God.
Three chapters later (17) he laments the inability of his five senses
to experience God. Yet after he apprehends God as the supreme and
encompassing good (22–23), he raises his “whole intellect” (totum
intellectum; 24, S 117) to apprehend the superabundant goods of the
body and the soul in the joy of the blessed (25). These goods en-
compass, yet far surpass, what the narrator’s five senses desire in
chapter 17.
Moreover, the separation between “understanding” (intellegere)
and “experiencing” or “feeling” (sentire) God in chapters 14 and 17
is more than healed when the narrator’s “whole intellect” appre-
hends the joy of the blessed. This joy is not merely experienced (sen-
tire; 14, S 111) in the senses but in the narrator’s intima (25B, S 120),
literally “in the guts.” He is speaking to his “heart,” cor in Latin, and
understood to reside at the physical core of the human body, as its
psychological core. (The heart as pump for the blood was a Renais-
sance discovery, and “the heart” as mere feeling, as distinguished
from “the head” or “thought,” likewise came many centuries later.)
Anselm understood “the heart” to be located in the region between
our solar plexus and stomach, and its intima indicate experience in
one’s inward depths. In short, when the narrator’s “whole intellect”
apprehends the joy of the blessed, his feeling of it is not merely sen-
sible but visceral. The separation between “intellectual understand-
ing” and “experience” is not merely bridged but obliterated as the
narrator’s totum intellectum is possessed by visceral joy in the vision
of God. Anselm the narrator does not expect or envision such joy
until he is possessed by his contemplation of it in chapter 25. His
seeking to understand God (2–13) and his desire to experience him
(14–18A) are surpassed by his apprehending “the fullness of joy”
(25, S 120) of the blessed. We are meant to understand that God’s
grace, working in and through the narrator’s prayer, has led him to
fulfillment beyond his aims or expectations. At the beginning of his
quest, his faith is seeking understanding (1–2), while at the end, his
faith has found joy (25B–26).
This “fulfillment beyond expectations” in the dramatic structure
of the Proslogion is consistent with my division of it into parts. But to
understand this consistency, we need to consider the work’s nu-
merological structure. The Proslogion does not feature its patterns,
but it has them. Anselm varied the length of his chapters a great
deal, one sign that he wanted to have twenty-six of them, no more
and no fewer. While I grant that the Proslogion can be divided differ-
ently than it is here, one argument for this division lies in the signif-
icance of its numbers and pattern.
Consider the numbers of chapters and their symmetrical pattern
in the far right-hand column of the chart printed earlier: 1 3 9 9 3 1.
The numbers all evoke the God being sought by Anselm the narra-
tor, whether as Unity or as Trinity (3, 3 3 3 = 9). Moreover, the total
number of chapters, twenty-six, was known to be the numerical sum
of the letters of the tetragrammaton, YHWH, the Hebrew name of
the One God (Ex 3:14). (If one adds the Preface as a chapter, the
Proslogion has twenty-seven chapters, an especially Trinitarian num-
ber (3 3 3 3 3).) As a whole, this division has six parts, a number
indicating creative fullness, from the six days of creation. These six
parts look forward to fulfillment beyond the work in a seventh, or
sabbatical, part, the eternal joy for which Anselm the narrator prays
in the final movement of the final chapter.
Its symmetrical pattern, moreover, is chiastic, and so it evokes
the name and the work of Christ. The chiasm in the Proslogion is en-
acted by the pattern of number of chapters in its six parts: 1 3 9 9 3
1. As we saw in Chapter 1, “chiasm” derives from the Greek letter
chi, written as an X. It is the first letter of Christos in Greek and, writ-
ten as a cross, it symbolizes the Cross. The symmetrical structure of
a chiasm (A B B A) also suggests the theological and cosmological
pattern of “progression and return,” fundamental to the Christian-
Platonist ascent. Christ is understood to be the Word who created
the universe (Jn 1:1–3) and the Savior whose death on the cross en-
ables human beings to return to their Origin. In sum, the numero-
logical patterning of the Proslogion is Christological and incarnation-
al: it embodies Trinitarian numerology in a Cross pattern.
The numerological significance and Christological pattern of my
division is consistent with Anselm’s aim in the Proslogion as a whole:
to encompass the full scope of reality, as he understood it. The work
clearly seeks to apprehend the whole divinity, both the One God
and the Three Persons. The Proslogion as a whole also embraces the
scope of the Christian Bible, from Creation and Fall to Apocalypse:
chapter 1 explicitly refers to Adam’s unfallen and fallen life, while
chapter 25 envisions the eternal life of the resurrected in the heaven-
ly city. In his narrator’s prayers of longing, Anselm the author dram-
atized the fallen Adam in us yearning to return to God, and in the
movement of the work as a whole, he dramatized God’s saving grace
leading to fulfillment beyond our expectations. The whole Christian
vision of salvation history is enacted in the Proslogion. It thereby en-
acts the circle of procession and return embodied in the Bible as a
whole, as well as in each person’s life. A Trinitarian numerology in a
chiastic and Christological pattern is consistent with this enact-
ment. This numerological structure proves part of the work’s formal

coherence as a literary and philosophical masterpiece.
Patterns in the Ascent

Anselm scholars generally agree that the Proslogion is a subtle
work. Its subtlety is underscored in a new way when we distinguish
Anselm the narrator from the historical Anselm, the author. Slight
differences of phrasing come to have meaning for the narrator’s
progress in his ascent, for if we think there is only “one Anselm” in
the work, these differences often seem negligible, because the two
phrases are practically synonymous. Similarly, discussion of the “ar-
gument” of the work tends to blur these slight differences, for the
second phrasing does not introduce a “new idea,” only a variation
on something already established. It seems to be a merely rhetorical
variatio, for it adds nothing significant to the doctrinal content of
the Proslogion, and so it can be ignored. Attending to the narrator’s
ascent, however, with its dramatic and philosophical structure,
helps us notice such variations. They become significant shifts in
meaning. They thereby add to our understanding of the work and
our appreciation of Anselm’s artistry.
Let three brief examples illustrate my point. In chapter 13
Anselm the narrator declares that because “nothing is greater than
you, no place or time confines [cohibet] you” (S 110). By the end of
chapter 19, he registers this advance in understanding: “Nothing
contains you, but you contain [contines] all things” (S 115). He has
advanced in two respects. First, he not only denies the negative but
also asserts the positive: not only does nothing contain God (13),
but God contains all things (19). The former obviously implies the
latter, and if we are thinking about “Anselm’s argument” in the
Proslogion, the implication may be so obvious as to be negligible.
But the consciousness of Anselm the narrator, by definition, is ex-
plicit at every point in the work. What he does not utter, he does not
think, and he does not think that God “contains all things” until
Patterns of the Ascent 175
chapter 19. Second, the verb has changed, from cohibere (13) to con-
tinere (19). The former has overtones of restriction and restraint; it
alters slightly what the narrator utters in the previous sentence, that
“no law of place or of time compels [coercet] you” (13, S 110). Be-
cause “confines” (13) implies restraint, while “contains” suggests a
neutral holding, the narrator’s shift from “nothing confines God”
(13) to “nothing contains God” (19) indicates his increased sense
of God’s power. All the more so does his recognition that God “con-
tains all things.”
In this first example, though the change is subtle, it is registered
by a new verb and an additional formulation. My second example is
subtler still, for the formulation is exactly the same and the change
is registered only by a new context. In chapters 13 (S 110) and 20 (S
116), Anselm the narrator affirms God’s eternity in the same words:
“You are always” (semper es). Both of these statements are true, yet
their meanings prove rather different. In chapter 13, the narrator
understands eternity as “endless time.” Though all “created spirits”
are eternal in that they do not cease to be, God’s eternity proves
unique because He neither begins to be nor ceases to be (S 110–11).
By chapter 20, however, Anselm the narrator has been exploring
God’s eternity as “always whole” since the final words of chapter 18.
When he affirms that “You are always” in the final sentence of chap-
ter 20 (S 116), then he is articulating God’s transcendence of time—
God is “beyond” (ultra) all things, even eternal ones—because he
contains all times in his eternal self-presence. The words “You are al-
ways” are the same in both chapters, yet their meaning in chapter 20
surpasses that in chapter 13.
My final example concerns Anselm the narrator’s sense of God’s
self-existence. His first statement comes in chapter 5, in a rhetorical
question: “But what are you, but that which, highest of all things
alone existing through itself [per seipsum], made all other things out
of nothing?” (S 104). He does not return to this theme until chapter
12: “But certainly whatever you are, you are not through another
but through yourself” (non per aliud es quam per teipsum; S 110). The
narrator’s progress is subtle, yet it is marked in three ways. First, he
moves from indirect assertion, in a rhetorical question, to direct as-
sertion. Second, his method of addressing God is more direct in
chapter 12, from “through itself” (5) to “through yourself” (12).
Third, to his positive assertion of God’s self-existence, he adds a de-
nial of the negative, “not through another” (non per aliud).
This addition may seem negligible, since existence “through it-
self” necessarily implies “not through another.” Nevertheless, this
addition foreshadows future insights, and thus prepares the way for
them. This language returns in chapter 22, where the narrator de-
scribes God’s existence non per aliud as existence “proper and ab-
solute” (S 116). He then adapts this language for the Trinity in chap-
ter 23, where the Son is non aliud, “not other,” than the Father and
the Spirit is “not other” than the Father and the Son (S 117). Indeed,
his climactic assertion of God’s threefold unity uses non aliud lan-
guage three times: “for each [Person] is not other than [non est aliud
quam] most highly simple unity and most highly one simplicity,
which cannot be multiplied and cannot be other and other [nec ali-
ud et aliud; S 117].” In the unfolding of the Proslogion, then, Anselm
the narrator’s discovery of non aliud language in chapter 12 is not
negligible, for it prepares him to treat the Persons of the Trinity in a
way that God’s “existing through himself,” alone, does not enable.
These examples indicate two ways of recognizing changes in the
narrator’s assertions, in content, or vocabulary, and in style, or tone.
Because the Proslogion is a literary and philosophical work, these
may be distinguished but they should not be separated. Although a
change from indirect to direct assertion is clearly a change of tone,
the narrator’s adding a denial of the negative to a statement of the
positive could be considered a strengthening in tone, or an addition
of content, or both. It does not matter how we classify the change.
What matters is discerning the movement in Anselm the narrator’s
ascent by grasping significant, if subtle, changes. I will illustrate
these points by exploring two significant patterns in his ascent: the

first features the content of a key word, while the second examines
the changing style of the narrator’s philosophical analyses.
The key word “contains” is actually a family of words and im-
ages, as we have already seen. It first appears in chapter 13: “Since,
therefore, nothing is greater than you, no place or time confines [co-
hibet] you, but you are everywhere and always” (S 110). Chapter 19
registers a significant gain in understanding: “Nothing contains you,
but you contain [contines] all things” (S 115). Although several
things in the intervening chapters prepare for this gain, one is an
image of “containing” that does not use the word: “How immense is
that which beholds in one gaze [in uno intuitu videt] whatsoever
many things have been made, and by whom and through whom
and in what manner they have been made out of nothing” (14, S
112). This utterance occurs in a hymn of praise to God’s greatness,
and it is the first reference to God’s “unity” (“in one gaze”) in the
work. Here, God’s single gaze “contains” in vision all things at once
and the Trinity that makes them. Granted, this utterance is brief and
undeveloped in chapter 14 because it bursts forth from the narrator
in a prayer of praise. Nevertheless, it foreshadows the narrator’s ex-
ploration of God’s unity (18B, S 114–15) and his subsequent dis-
covery that God “contains all things” (19, S 115).
A crucial change is under way here in the Proslogion. Anselm the
narrator is beginning to experience a reversal of perspective: from
“God is in all things” to “All things are in God.”9 In chapter 13, the
imagery of God’s being “unlimited,” or “uncircumscribed” (13, S
110–11), suggests extension, pervasiveness. He is “everywhere at
once” (simul ubique; 13, S 110). Though the narrator understands
himself to be reflecting on God, his perspective is dominated by
this-worldly experience. By the end of chapter 23, however, his envi-
9. R. A. Herrera, Introduction, p. 27, calls this a “transition from the horizon-

tal level of understanding” to a “vertical” one, locating the shift in chapter 15.
sions not the world in relation to God, but God in relation to the
world. Every single good, which includes every being, is “in” God,
or rather, “is” God (23, S 117, my emphasis). Let us see how this re-
versal of perspectives is effected.
The discovery that God “contains all things” (19) is immediately
intensified in the first sentence of chapter 20: “Therefore, you fill
and embrace [imples et complecteris] all things” (S 115). God does
not merely contain them, but fills them, and he not only fills them,
but embraces them in love and comprehends them (complecteris im-
plies both). Chapter 21 heightens this assertion, for not only are “all
things full of you” but “all things are in you” (S 116). God is grow-
ing, as it were, in the narrator’s intellectual vision. Here, God so pre-
dominates over “all things” that they are not merely “full of [him]”
but are inside him. At the same time, “all things,” in chapter 21,
means more than it did in chapter 19, for the narrator has just dis-
covered that “your eternity contains [continet] even the very ages of
time” (21, S 116). All things that have ever existed, that exist now,
and that ever will exist are not only full of God but also are within
God.
The conclusions of chapters 22 and 23 heighten this language,
as they return to the understanding of God as “highest good” (sum-
mum bonum; S 117), first mentioned in chapter 5 (S 104) and not
used since (though God is called “every true good” in 18B, S 114).
Chapter 22 closes with the narrator’s ringing assertion that “you are
the one and highest good, you, wholly sufficient to yourself, need-
ing nothing, whom all things need so that they may be and be well”
(S 117). All things are ontologically dependent upon God for both
their existence and their well-being. Although this does not use the
imagery of “containment” explicitly, it carries forward the earlier in-
sights uttered in that imagery. All things do not merely exist “in
God,” as in chapter 21, but are in radical need of God not only for
their existence but also for their well-being. This line of thought is
further intensified in the final words of chapter 23, where the im-
agery of containing explicitly returns: God is “that one thing neces-

sary, in which is every good, or rather which is every and one and
wholly and alone good” (S 117). Not only is every good in God but
God himself is every good! God does not merely contain all goods,
because all things depend upon him ontologically, but somehow he
is himself all goods.
With this assertion, containing imagery proper comes to an end
in the Proslogion. It is succeeded by the language of “beyond con-
tainment,” and both are coordinated with the narrator’s progress in
his ascent. As we have seen, containing imagery participates in the
ascent by its gradual intensification: God contains all things (19),
fills and embraces them (20), they are in him (21), and he holds
them in being and well-being (22). Finally, because God is “the one
thing necessary,” he is every possible good, including existence (23,
S 117). At this point, the narrator’s use of containing imagery has
surpassed itself, and so it is succeeded by the language of “beyond
containment,” evident in the work’s climactic “fulfillment beyond
expectations.” Toward the end of chapter 25, the narrator insists that
“the heart of man will barely hold [vix capiet; S 120] its own joy at
its own so great good” in the vision of God, and in chapter 26 he in-
sists that “I have found a joy that is full and more than full” (S
120–21). The ascending movement in chapters 24–25 rings various
changes on the theme of “so much more,” and chapter 26 is literally
filled with the language of fullness and joy.
This joy is so great that it will not enter us but we, rather, will en-
ter it, for we will “enter into the joy of the Lord” (26, S 121; cf. Mt.
25:21). The narrator who commanded himself to “enter into the in-
ner chamber of your mind” (Mt. 6:6) in chapter 1 (S 97) now has a
foretaste of entering into God’s overflowing joy. That first entering,
into prayer, foreshadows the final one, into joy. With this foretaste
of God’s superabundant good, he can go no further, and the work
comes to a close. Similarly, containing imagery does its work by
preparing itself to be surpassed. Albeit in more complex detail than
“entering,” containing imagery functions according to the scheme

of Old Testament prefiguring and New Testament fulfillment, imi-
tated by the ascent of the Proslogion.
The gradual intensification of language in the narrator’s ascent is
also registered in the style of his philosophical analyses. Here I draw
on two patterns distinguished by Anselm Stolz.10 Stolz rightly insists
that the Proslogion was presented by Anselm as an “address” (alloqui-
um, the penultimate word in the Preface, S 94). Some chapters, like
chapter 8, are prayers throughout: every sentence is spoken to God.
Others, like chapter 7, have a threefold pattern: the opening ques-
tions and final conclusions are addressed to God, in the second per-
son, while the philosophical analysis in between has its verbs in the
third person. Stolz underscores the importance of the narrator’s re-
turn to addressing God in his conclusions: the results of the narra-
tor’s philosophical analysis are thereby used for the contemplation
of God, in prayer. This was Anselm’s aim, as stated in his Preface, for
he wrote the work “under the guise of one striving to elevate his
mind to the contemplation of God and seeking to understand what
he believes.” Even when the narrator departs from addressing God,
in order to reason philosophically, he returns to God with his re-
sults so as to contemplate Him.
Stolz’s two patterns provide one index to the intensity of the
narrator’s utterance. In general, address to God, in the second per-
son, is more intense than reasoning about God in the third person.
By this index, then, chapters 2–13 manifest rising and falling inten-
sities in the narrator’s tone. As Stolz shows in some detail, the three-
fold pattern informs the famous argument in chapters 2–4: the nar-
rator prays at the beginning of chapter 2, in the middle of chapter 3,
and at the end of chapter 4, with analyses in between. His resound-
ing thanksgiving at its end carries forward into chapter 5, where the
narrator speaks to God in every sentence. Similarly, the narrator’s
10. Anselm Stolz, “Anselm’s Theology,” pp. 198–204.

movement from the threefold pattern in chapters 6 and 7 to direct

address throughout chapter 8 marks an intensification of his in-
volvement. This intensification may be linked with his change in
subject matter, from God’s being omniscient (6) and omnipotent
(7) to his being merciful (8). The narrator uses a traditional pun
when he asserts that God’s mercifulness (misericordia) saves us in
our misery (miseria; cf. 8, S 106).11 God’s mercy touches our needi-
ness more nearly than does his being omniscient (6) or omnipotent
(7), and so the narrator speaks to him in every sentence of chapter
8. This intensity of direct address continues throughout chapters
9–11 on God’s justice and mercy. The very brief chapter 12 contin-
ues the alloquium, before chapter 13 returns to the threefold pattern,
as it differentiates God’s unlimitedness from that of “created spir-
its.” Nevertheless, the narrator only gives up his speaking to God
when considering “created spirits,” for his every reflection on God’s
being unlimited and eternal is spoken to God. Hence, there may be
some falling off of intensity in chapter 13, compared with chapters
8–12, but the pitch is higher than that in chapters 6 and 7.
Because chapters 14–18A are taken up with the narrator’s critical
reflection on the failure of his ascent, he does not return to philo-
sophical analysis until 18B. The narrator begins the latter movement
by asking, “What are you, Lord?” (Quid es, Domine?; 18, S 114),
echoing the first words of chapter 5 and renewing its quest. His
movement from exploring God’s unity (18B) to considering the
Trinity (23) is marked, first, by speaking to God throughout and,
second, by a sudden intensification in style. First, his philosophical
analysis does not depart from prayer. Chapters 18B–21 are all spo-
ken to God: the narrator poses his questions to God, works out his
analysis while addressing God, and speaks his conclusions to God.
His movement is careful, even labored, for it is crowded with ques-
tions (three in 18B, two in 19, five in 20), but it is all alloquium.
11. For an example, see Confessions 13.12.13: “for your mercy [misericordia]
did not abandon our misery [miseriam].”
Then, suddenly, his questions are gone: his style is intensified by

resounding assertions, and these address the highest things in theol-
ogy: God’s being (22) and the Trinity (23). We are meant to under-
stand that Anselm the narrator is possessed by sudden grace, giving
wings to his insight. He no longer gropes with question and analy-
sis: he proclaims to God “what you are.” Although the first part of
chapter 22 gathers together insights won over chapters 18B–21, the
narrator brings them together with force and assurance. He also uses
new words for new qualities of God’s being, calling it “proper and
absolute” for the first time (22, S 116). He concludes the chapter
with a ringing affirmation that God is the “one and highest good” (S
117) which all things need for their being and well-being. Chapter
23 continues in this vein, as Anselm the narrator describes to God
the nature of the relations between the Three Persons. The narrator
is in wholly new territory here. Although he alluded earlier to the
Three Persons, he has not reflected upon them at all. He is not gath-
ering together earlier answers to questions, as in the first part of
chapter 22. Rather, he is pronouncing, with sublime assurance, on
the loftiest mystery in his faith.
Yet in the middle of chapter 23, something curious happens:
Anselm the narrator shifts from verbs in the second person, address-
ing God, to those in the third. When he introduces the procession
of the Persons from the “highest simplicity,” he stops speaking to
God and begins to describe him. Granted, his language continues to
ring with affirmations and becomes, if anything, even more exalted.
Nevertheless, the narrator is violating a pattern that has heretofore
held throughout the Proslogion: conclusions are spoken to God in
prayer. Anselm the author deliberately orchestrated this violation as
the climax of his narrator’s utterances about God. How should we
understand it?
I suggest that this violation actually fulfills the earlier pattern in
a surprising way. Stolz insists, with his threefold pattern, that even
when the narrator departs from alloquium to engage in philosophi-
cal analysis, he returns to speak his conclusions to God, using his re-
sults to contemplate God in prayer. At the lower levels of his ascent,
this return to prayer is necessary. In chapter 23, I would argue, it is
not, for Anselm the narrator has been raised by grace to contem-
plate the Trinity and describe his vision. He reflects on the Trinity in
direct address in the first part of the chapter, yet when he introduces
its “highest simplicity,” his vision, as it were, becomes simple and
contemplative. This is suggested, in part, by his quotation of Jesus’
statement to Martha, symbolizing the active life, defending Mary, or
the contemplative life: “But one thing is necessary” (23, S 117; Lk
10:42). Anselm the narrator, like Mary, is rapt in contemplative at-
tention, albeit one unfolding discursively. The unity and simplicity
of his contemplative gaze is reflected in his exalted language for
each Person of the Trinity, “most highly simple unity and most
highly one simplicity” (S 117). His final assertion in chapter 23 also
suggests that he has stopped speaking to God because his vision is
caught up into God: “this is that one thing necessary, in which is
every good, or rather which is every and one and whole and alone
good” (S 117). The difference between “every good” and God is mo-
mentarily abolished, and since every existence is a good, the narra-
tor’s existence is not only in God but is, somehow, itself divine. We
are meant to understand that he is experiencing a form of the mysti-
cal deificatio, “divinization.” An image of God, he is being made
more God-like through this intense experience of grace. The narra-
tor’s language, in this exalted vision, does not speak to God yet
nonetheless praises him, exulting in his presence. The narrator’s fi-
nal contemplation of God, in the third person, violates yet fulfills
the pattern established in the work, because his contemplation is so
exalted.
Chapter 23 concludes the narrator’s consideration of God per se.
Nevertheless, he remains “in God,” as it were, even though he does
not speak to God again until chapter 26. He begins chapter 24 by
commanding himself to raise his “whole intellect” (S 117) to con-
sider the quantity and quality of the Creator’s good by comparing it

to created goods. This command governs chapters 24 and 25: these
do not address God directly at any point, and they mount climacti-
cally not only in matter but in manner. In chapter 24, the narrator
compares the Creator’s good to created goods indirectly, for the
most part in rhetorical questions. In chapter 25, however, he speaks
more boldly: his assertions about the quantity and quality of the
“goods” (25A, S 118–19) and “joy” (25B, S 120) of the blessed are
detailed and direct. In short, his ecstatic contemplative vision of
God as the one necessary good, at the end of chapter 23, is progres-
sively diversified and diffused to human beings, over chapters 24
and 25. In these two chapters, the narrator may be understood as
still in God’s presence, as it were, but he does not pray to God di-
rectly until the beginning of chapter 26. There, I have argued, he no
longer progresses but stands at the summit of his vision, reflecting
prayerfully on the “full joy” of the blessed he envisioned in chapter
25. Toward the end of the chapter, his reflection modulates to peti-
tion, as he begs God to help him progress daily toward that full and
final joy.
In short, Anselm the author orchestrated the manner of his nar-
rator’s utterances in harmony with their matter. The way the narra-
tor speaks often proves as valuable an index to his progress as what
he has to say. Over the course of his ascent, his manner is varied and
intensified in accord with his matter. In this regard, the Proslogion
proves as much a literary as it does a philosophical work of art.
This attention to tone may seem philosophically negligible to
some, but that depends on what one considers philosophy to be or
to do. In the house of philosophy, there are many genres besides
“the argument,” and in these the ergon, the action of the work,
proves as important as the logos, what it states. A speaker’s manner is
a crucial element in the philosophical ergon of a work. Socrates’
ironies are not negligible in the Platonic dialogues, and the various
attitudes of Johannes Climacus in the Concluding Unscientfic Post-
Prayer and Understanding 185
script reflect Kierkegaard’s designs on his readers through his design

of the work. If we wish to understand Anselm the author’s achieve-
ment in the Proslogion, we must attend to the manner, as well as to
the matter, of his narrator’s utterances in the ascent.
Prayer and Understanding

The foregoing treatment of patterns in the ascent of the Proslo-
gion has largely ignored chapters 14–18A, in which the narrator re-
flects on his failure to experience God. These chapters do not under-
take the kind of philosophical analysis we see in chapters 2–13 and
18B–25. Rather, the narrator wonders why he has not experienced
God, and he laments and explores this failure in prayer. These chap-
ters clearly have a dramatic function in the narrator’s ascent, for, by
delaying his progress, they create suspense. They also alert us that
more is at stake for him than simply “understanding” God. Even
though he begins chapter 2 with a prayer to understand God, as far as
that is possible, in chapter 14 he laments his failure to experience
God. Chapters 14–18A are filled with prayers, often echoing mo-
tives of longing from chapter 1. Yet, granting their dramatic func-
tion, the question arises, “Do these chapters have any philosophical
function in the work?”
Indeed, the question may be extended to all of the narrator’s spe-
cial prayers. By “special prayers,” I mean those passages where the
narrator departs from philosophical analysis (in prayer) to praise
God in exalted language (9, 14, 16) or lament his failure to experi-
ence him (14, 17, 18A). To be sure, these special prayers endow the
work with special qualities of devotion, and they also dramatize cer-
tain moments in the narrator’s struggle to understand and experi-
ence God. Beyond that, however, do they have any philosophical
function in the unfolding action of the work? We will need to review
the narrator’s final ascent in order to understand how his special
prayers relate to it. But my answers may be briefly stated: his special
prayers contain the seeds of his philosophical breakthroughs, and
his recognition of failure proves crucial to his success. In these two

ways, the Proslogion enacts “faith seeking understanding” and “re-
pentance” leading to renewal and fulfillment.
In the action of the work, worship is essential to philosophical
insight and discovery. As in Augustine’s Confessions, the meditative
texture of prayer enacts, in the small, the meditative structure of the
whole work as an ascent to God. From the beginning, Anselm the
narrator attempts “to raise his mind up to contemplate the things of
God and to understand what he believes” (“Preface,” S 93). In this
formula, worship and contemplation precede understanding and
lead to it. Because the narrator raises his mind to God in prayer at
every point, he eventually rises through grace to “enter into the joy
of his Lord” (26, S 121).
Chapters 18B–23 climax in affirmations of God’s goodness, uni-
ty, and simplicity, the latter two based upon his wholeness in eterni-
ty. We have already seen how chapters 22 and 23 close with God as
“the one and highest good” (22, S 117) and “the one necessary”
good (23, S 117). Each Person of the Trinity possesses unity and
simplicity in the highest degree (23) because God possesses exis-
tence “properly and simply” (22, S 116). God’s unity is first explored
in chapter 18B, where it is characterized by wholeness and eternity:
“you are whole everywhere, and your eternity is always whole.” This
wholeness defines God’s unity, for “your life and wisdom and the
rest are not parts of you, but all are one, and each of them is wholly
what you are and what all the rest are” (18B, S 115). The wholeness
of God’s eternity is analyzed in chapters 19–21, through question
and answer, before the narrator proclaims his assertions on God’s
being (22) and Trinity (23) with sublime assurance.
The crucial elements in these analyses are not introduced in
them but appear first in Anselm the narrator’s special prayers. His
first mention of “unity” in the work appears in chapter 14, and he
first uses “simplicity” in the sentence immediately following. He is
praising God’s greatness: “How immense is that which beholds in
one gaze [in uno intuitu videt] whatsoever things that have been
made.” He then adds “What purity, what simplicity are there!” (14,
S 112). The narrator echoes the phrase uno intuitu videre with respect
to his own quest not long thereafter, just after he renews his ascent
(18B), and it leads him directly to explore God’s unity. God has
many aspects—life, wisdom, truth, goodness, and so on—and the
narrator wishes that he could “behold them in a one simultaneous
gaze” (uno simul intuitu videre; 18B, S 114). In other words, he first
apprehends God’s unity in a hymn of praise (14), and soon after re-
flects on God’s unity for the first time (18B), hoping to unify his
own understanding.
The language of “simplicity” returns in the following chapter,
where it underscores God’s “whole eternity” and unified being:
“You are neither yesterday nor today nor tomorrow, but you are sim-
ply, beyond all time [sed simpliciter es extra omne tempus]” (19, S
115). The narrator strikes the same note for God’s being in chapter
22: “You are, properly and simply” (S 116). Then, in chapter 23, he
crowds together the various word forms of unity and simplicity to
describe each Person of the Trinity as “not other than most highly
simple unity and most highly one simplicity” (S 117). In short,
Anselm the author orchestrated this movement for his narrator: he
introduced words for unity and simplicity in a hymn of praise be-
fore the narrator uses them as tools of philosophical analysis. His
special prayers lay the groundwork for his philosophical insights.
Similarly, God’s wholeness first appears in the narrator’s exalted
language in chapter 9, where he praises God as “wholly and most
highly just” (totus et summe iustus; S 106) and as “wholly and most
highly good” (totus summe bonus; S 107). The narrator uses the word
totus (“whole”) for God five times near the beginning of the chapter,
three times in close association with summe (“most highly”). Grant-
ed, he calls God “the highest good” (summum bonum) in chapter 5,
but indirectly, in a rhetorical question. In chapter 9, in contrast, he
addresses God directly as “most highly good” (summe bonus) at least
three times, linking it with God as either “wholly” (totus) or “most

highly just” (summe iustus; S 107–8). In other words, God’s preemi-
nence as summus receives its first ringing affirmation in chapter 9,
where the language of wholeness is first used for God, also in re-
sounding affirmations. Totus and summus thereby work to define
each other mutually.
Because “whole” proves a key word in the narrator’s ascent, let
us track its progress toward defining God’s “whole eternity” (tota ae-
ternitas; 18B, S 115). The word “eternal” first appears in chapter 9, in
the paradox that God, who is “wholly just,” saves those “who de-
serve eternal death” (S 106–7). The narrator does not use the word
again until he reflects on God’s being “eternal” and “unlimited” (in-
circumscriptus) in chapter 13 (S 110), and he does not use the noun
“eternity” until chapter 14 (S 111). In chapter 13, he conceives eter-
nity only as endless time: although “created spirits” are said to be
eternal because they do not cease to exist, once they have been creat-
ed, God is uniquely eternal because he neither ceases to be, nor
does he begin to be (non incipis esse; S 110). The narrator does not
use the word “whole” for God’s eternity, in chapter 13, though he
does us it for God’s being unlimited: “That is indeed unlimited,
which is simultaneously everywhere whole” (quod simul est ubique
totum; S 110). What the narrator does not say, he does not think, by
definition. He understands God’s being unlimited, “simultaneously
everywhere whole,” on the analogy of the soul in the body, for “the
whole soul” is in each of the body’s members, because the whole
soul feels in each of them (S 110–11). He has no comparable analo-
gy of wholeness for God’s being eternal, and so he does not think it.
In chapter 13, the narrator conceives of God’s eternity as extensive,
everlasting throughout all time. He does not think of God’s eternity
as intensive, as “whole” until the final sentence of chapter 18B (S
115).
That insight, however, is foreshadowed and prepared for by his
next two uses of “whole,” in his hymn of praise in chapter 16. He
uses the “O” of praise to address God, “O highest and inaccessible
light, O whole and blessed truth” (o tota et beata veritas; S 112), and
he then tells this Truth, “Everywhere you are wholly present”
(Ubique es tota praesens; S 113). “Truth” is traditionally understood
to be eternal, and here it is linked with “wholeness” and “presence.”
This is the first use of praesens in the Proslogion, and “whole pres-
ence” soon animates the narrator’s reflection on God’s eternity. He
first calls God’s eternity “always whole” at the end of chapter 18 (S
115), and chapter 19 explores this whole eternity as God’s simplici-
ty, “beyond all time” (S 115). He then analyzes God’s transcending
time in the following chapter, and God’s being (praesens) provides
the crucial insight: “So, then, you are always beyond [all things,
even eternal ones], since you are always present to yourself” (semper
tibi sis praesens; 20, S 116).12 God’s eternity and theirs is “wholly
present” to God (tota tibi praesens; 20, S 115). The narrator’s praising
God as tota praesens (“wholly present,” S 113) in chapter 16 fore-
shadows his analysis of God’s eternity as tota tibi praesens (“Wholly
present to yourself”; 20, S 115) by introducing the key word praesens
and linking it with God’s wholeness.
In the final chapters of the work, “wholeness” modulates into
ecstatic “fullness.” At the beginning of chapter 24, the narrator com-
mands his soul to raise up his “whole intellect” (totum intellectum; S
117) to contemplate God’s goodness. This is fulfilled at the end of
chapter 25, when he envisions all the blessed loving God “with
their whole heart, their whole mind, and their whole soul” (toto
corde, tota mente, et tota anima; 25B, S 120). In the following chapter,
this “wholeness” is transformed into “fullness”: the blessed experi-
ence joy “with their full heart, with their full mind, and with their
full soul” (pleno corde, plena mente, plena anima), for the “whole hu-
man being is full” (pleno toto homine) of that joy “which exceeds all
measure” (26, S 121). In the previous section, we saw how “contain-
ing” imagery prepares the way for its being surpassed in the final
12. Gregory Schufreider has tibi, following F. S. Schmitt 1962. Schmitt 1938
has ibi, recording tibi as a significant other reading.
chapters of the Proslogion. So, too, the language of “wholeness” is

surpassed and fulfilled in the narrator’s joy that is “full and more
than full” (26, S 120–21).
In sum, the crucial features of the narrator’s final analysis of God
are introduced in his special prayers and passages of exalted lan-
guage. God’s unity (14), simplicity (14), and presence (16) first ap-
pear in hymns of praise. His wholeness (totus) first appears in the
exalted language of chapter 9, where his being “most highly good”
(summus bonus) receives its first wholehearted affirmation. The dif-
fusion of God’s goodness to the blessed uses the language of whole-
ness for their perfect love, which is fulfilled in their fullness of joy.
Chapter 9 also contains the narrator’s first hymn of praise in the
work, and it, too, foreshadows the finale of his ascent. The hymn be-
gins “O the depth of your goodness” (O altitudo bonitatis tuae; 9, S
107), and we are meant to understand that Anselm the narrator is
suddenly moved by powerful grace. He exclaims “O” four times,
praising God’s mercy (O misericordia) and the immensity of his
goodness (O immensitas bonitatis Dei; O immensa bonitas; S 107).
Only one other special prayer in the work addresses God with the
“O” of praise, in chapter 16 (S 112; quoted above). Chapter 9 there-
by contains the narrator’s longest and most exalted hymn of praise
in the ascent, and its theme is God’s goodness. He draws on the bib-
lical imagery of God as a “fountain” (fons), or source of water,
whose abundance gives life. Shortly before his first “O” of praise, he
describes a “stream of mercy” as welling up “from the deepest and
most secret place of [God’s] goodness.” In the hymn proper, he calls
it a river “in full flood” (flumen) nourishing us with “its abundant
sweetness and sweet abundance” (9, S 107). Amid this imagery of
overflowing abundance, he uses the word “fullness” for the first
time in the Proslogion, for the “fullness of [God’s] goodness” (pleni-
tudine bonitatis; S 107). “Fullness” does not appear again until the fi-
nal words of chapter 25, with “the fullness of joy,” followed by
many uses of “full” in chapter 26.
In its subject, language, and style, then, chapter 9 foreshadows

the final movement of Anselm the narrator’s ascent. The noun
“goodness” (bonitas) is ascribed to God nine times in the chapter,
and he is called “good” (bonus) ten times or more, and “most highly
good” (summe bonus) three times. Equally strong affirmations of
God’s goodness do not occur again until the narrator’s final words
on God’s being (22) and the Trinity (23). Moreover, the narrator
does not speak about the abundance of God’s goodness again until
chapter 24, and then largely in rhetorical questions. In the follow-
ing chapter, however, he uses both the language and the style of
abundance, as good is added to good (25A) and then joy mounts to
joy in fullness (25B). In chapters 24–26, he does not use the water
imagery of chapter 9, for he is presenting an analysis, albeit with
mounting excitement. Nevertheless, his analysis of the diffusion of
God’s goodness reworks the overflowing abundance of chapter 9 as
an ascending climax.
So far, we have seen how Anselm the narrator’s praise of God
prepares for his philosophical breakthroughs and foreshadows the
climax of his ascent. His critical self-examination and laments in
chapters 14–18A remain to be considered. But because his self-
examination gives rise to hymns of praise, whose effect we have ex-
amined, it will be easy to show how the narrator’s recognition of
failure proves crucial to his success.
The narrator’s self-reflective turn, in chapter 14, soon leads to
the hymn of praise where he recognizes God’s unity and simplicity
for the first time. His self-criticism thereby leads him to a new sense
of God’s greatness. He realizes that he has understood things about
God “with true certitude” (14, S 111), yet though he has found God
in some respects, he has not experienced God. He has seen God’s
light and truth, and so he has seen God somewhat, but not truly,
not “as you are” (14, S 111). This leads him, first, to lament the dark-
ness and narrowness of his vision, compared with God’s brilliance
and immensity (S 111–12), and then to hymn the greatness of God’s
light, the vastness of his truth, and the immensity of his beholding
all creation “in one gaze” (uno intuitu; S 112). As we have seen, this
apprehension of God’s unity is followed by praise for his simplici-
ty—both ideas prove crucial to the narrator’s subsequent analysis.
His critical self-examination and sense of his own inadequacy lead
him directly to new intuitions about God, which he later develops.
Moreover, the contrast between God’s greatness and his own
narrowness of vision leads the narrator to a new understanding in
chapter 15: God is “greater than can be thought” (S 112). He explic-
itly revises the formula of chapter 2, where God is “that than which
nothing greater can be thought” (S 101). He is led to this new and
higher insight by reflecting on his failure to experience God. His
sense of his own limits leads him to a new understanding of God.
His hymning the greatness of God’s light, in chapter 14, also
leads him to a new understanding in chapter 16, and it foreshadows
his later analysis of God’s eternity. The newness of his insight is
marked by his beginning each of the first three sentences with Vere,
“Truly” (S 112). The chapter begins, “Truly, Lord, this is the inacces-
sible light in which you dwell” (16; 2 Tim. 6:16). With “this” he is
referring to something he said two chapters, and seven sentences,
earlier: “For how great is that light, from which shines every truth
that illuminates the rational mind” (14, S 112; cf. Jn 1:9). The narra-
tor now understands, and emphasizes by his repetition of “Truly,”
that “whatever I see, I see by means of” God’s light illuminating his
mind (16, S 112). Hence, he does see God. Everything he under-
stands truly about God implies his vision of God. True, his vision
cannot penetrate this light so as to examine (pervideat) God himself
there. Nevertheless, he understands that he is bathed in the light of
God’s presence, even though he does not experience, or “feel,” God
(non te sentio; 16). This paradox gives rise, as we have seen, to the
“O” of praise—”O highest and inaccessible light, O whole and
blessed truth” (16, S 112—and to his insight that this truth is “every-
where wholly present” (Ubique es tota praesens; 16, S 113), foreshad-
owing his analysis of God’s eternity as “whole” (19–21). As in chap-

ter 14, the narrator’s sense of his limits entails his praise for God’s
greatness, and this praise contains the seeds for his analysis to come.
In these ways, then, the narrator’s recognition of failure proves
crucial to his success, and the second half of the Proslogion thereby
enacts the interplay between “repentance” and insight. I put “repen-
tance” in quotation marks because, clearly, the narrator is not regret-
ting any sins. Nevertheless, his self-reflective turn at the center of the
Proslogion recalls the prodigal son’s movement of repentance in
Luke’s parable: “However, returning unto himself [In se autem rever-
sus], he said, ‘How many hired servants in my father’s house abound
with bread, and I here perish with hunger?’” (Lk 15:17). The prodi-
gal son’s “returning unto himself” leads directly to his rising in re-
turn to his father: “I will arise [surgam] and go to my father” (Lk
15:18). So, too, Anselm the narrator’s recognition of his failure to
experience God, in chapter 14, leads to his ascent to his Father. This
recognition rises to anguish in chapter 18A, and his anguish leads
him to pray for God’s assistance. He thereby renews his quest for
understanding what God is (18B) and, as we have seen, his quest is
brought to fulfillment beyond his expectations. So, too, the prodigal
son hopes to “abound with bread” as a hired servant, and yet he is
welcomed back as a son and given the feast of the fatted calf. The
pattern of that parable—repentance and return, culminating in ful-
fillment beyond expectations—is enacted in the Proslogion.
In short, the narrator’s critical self-examination contributes di-
rectly to the eventual success of his quest. In this way, the work en-
acts a fundamental Christian pattern: repentance leads to renewal
and fulfillment. Had the narrator merely congratulated himself on
arriving at “certain truth and true certitude” (14, S 111) about God,
his progress would have been stalled or ended. Instead, his sense of
his own narrowness of vision leads him to praise God’s greatness,
and his praise contains the crucial ideas that advance his quest. We
are meant to understand that God’s grace comes to the narrator not
only as he pursues his analysis, but even as he laments his failure. In

his humility, he is exalted. He does not give up his quest because,
even in the midst of failure, God gives him the graces of praise and
insight.
These graces may be distinguished but they cannot be separated.
In chapters 14 and 16, the narrator’s praise of God contains the cru-
cial insights that enable his ascent to succeed. In this way, the Proslo-
gion enacts “faith seeking understanding”—Anselm’s original title
for the work (Preface, S 94)—because acts of praise provide insight.
We tend to view “faith seeking understanding” as the narrator’s at-
tempt to understand what he already believes, treating the work as a
kind of Scholastic analysis, albeit in a devotional style. This one-
directional view regards “faith” as a content already given, which
philosophical analysis explores to give “understanding.” But as the
Proslogion unfolds, we witness a dynamic interplay between “faith”
and “understanding,” as praise itself gives rise to new understand-
ings. “Faith seeking understanding” implies a dynamism in faith it-
self, an intrinsic movement of “seeking” for insight. Acts of faith
during the narrator’s journey, marked by passages of exalted lan-
guage, enable his philosophical quest to succeed. To be sure, philo-
sophical analysis is necessary to achieve fuller understanding, and
we should understand God’s grace to be as active in the narrator’s
analyses as in his acts of praise. Nevertheless, “faith seeking under-
standing” is not merely the theme of the Proslogion but its action.
The prayer that opens chapter 2 reminds us that God “gives under-
standing to faith” (S 101), as he also gives the grace of faith. In the
dynamism of the narrator’s dialogue with God, the grace of under-
standing comes in acts of faith and praise, as well as in philosophi-
cal analysis.
Hence chapters 14–18A function philosophically, as well as dra-
matically, in the work as a whole. Indeed, in a work like the Proslo-
gion, as in a Platonic dialogue, “philosophy” and “drama” may be
distinguished but should not be separated: what Anselm the author
accomplished in the work is not limited to what Anselm the narra-
Reconfigured Understandings 195
tor says. Anselm the narrator never reflects on the role of his critical
self-reflection in his progress, nor on what his acts of praise con-
tribute to his understanding, but Anselm the author surely did. The
economy of the Proslogion reveals its author’s comprehension of
every move in his narrator’s ascent. In other words, Anselm the au-
thor’s philosophical accomplishment in the work should be meas-
ured not merely by what it says, but also by what it does. This ac-
complishment included his understanding of the roles of praise and
critical self-reflection in the analysis of God. The work reflects this
authorial understanding by its action, not in its utterance. If we
want to understand Anselm’s achievement in the Proslogion, we need
to go beyond his narrator’s utterances to the author’s implied un-
derstandings. The dramatic action of the work proves an indispensa-
ble key to Anselm’s philosophy.
Reconfigured Understandings
Because a Christian-Platonist ascent unfolds as “a return to the
Origin,” later and higher stages “contain” lower ones, and therefore
sublate them. Earlier understandings are reconfigured at higher lev-
els. In theory at least, nothing is ever lost, ever completely left be-
hind. As we have seen, the language of “wholeness” and the imagery
of “containing” come to have gradually heightened meanings in the
narrator’s ascent, and finally they disappear. But they disappear only
to be fulfilled by higher language at a higher stage, for they are sub-
lated by “fullness” and “overflowing.” Anselm the narrator does not
notice this process. He is so involved in the dynamism of his ascent
that he never reflects on these sublations. Anselm the author, how-
ever, understood them intimately, as their careful orchestration in
the ascent reveals. If we want to understand the mind of Anselm
in the Proslogion, we must explore the relations between the stages of
the ascent. Anselm the narrator does not remark on them; Anselm
the author left them for the reader’s meditation.
This is too large a subject to be treated in any depth here. What
follows should be considered as a sketch, a set of remarks, indicat-
ing the kind of exploration the Proslogion calls for, as far as I under-
stand it. “Reconfigured Understandings” is simply another way of
reflecting on the narrator’s ascent and its implications. In one sense,
every time a key word is used at a higher level, its meaning is
changed, and therefore reconfigured. This section, however, looks at
how higher levels reconfigure earlier understandings without using
their key words. The understanding of God’s eternity as “endless
time,” in chapter 13 (S 110), is obviously transformed when chap-
ters 19–21 reconsider it as a “whole eternity” (18B ff, S 115). But
what happens to “eternity” in chapters 23–26, where it does not ap-
pear? What happens to “unity,” so vital to the narrator’s progress in
chapters 18B–23, after which it is not used? What happens to prae-
sens? Are they no longer relevant, and so they are merely surpassed,
or are they implied in some way we are meant to discover through
meditation?
The structure of the Christian-Platonist ascent invites us to ask
meditative questions like these because it assumes that nothing is
ever lost, and everything is fulfilled at its highest level. The medita-
tive ascent invites us to meditate on the rationale of its structure, if
we would understand it fully. Such meditation involves us more
deeply in the work. Anselm designed the Proslogion to attract this
kind of meditation, for it enables the work’s ascending transforma-
tion of perspectives to work more deeply upon its readers. Original-
ly, these were monks seeking to transform their lives; their meditat-
ing on transformations in the Proslogion was designed to assist this
process. They were adept at meditating on foreshadowing and ful-
fillment in the Bible. Anselm expected them to bring the same skills
to bear on his work. The remarks that follow are not, of course, a
medieval monastic meditation. But the questions are meditative
and, in my view, Anselm implied them by the genre and structure of
the Proslogion that he created. I will begin with questions whose an-
swers should cause little difficulty.
“Unity” is reconfigured at the end of the work as the unity of
God becomes the unity of the Mystical Body of Christ in a single

word, “joy.” The word “one” (unum) is prominent in the narrator’s
resounding affirmations of God as “good” (22) and as Trinity (23):
He is “the one and highest good” (22) and “the one necessary” be-
ing (23, S 117). The last use of the word comes early in chapter 25,
when the narrator commands himself to “Love the one good [unum
bonum] in which are all goods—and it suffices” (S 118, my empha-
sis). He then enumerates seven goods of body and seven goods of
soul, all of which are “there,” in the “one good” envisioned by the
blessed (25A, S 118–19). This is a rhetorical divisio, enumerating as-
pects of what is one.
He then reflects on the “joy” experienced “where so much good
is” (25B, S 120), and this, too, culminates in a unity. He begins by
addressing his own “human heart” as “you,” in the second-person
singular, but he shifts subtly to the third-person singular (from nul-
lus, “no one,” to quisque, “each”). Then, at the end of the chapter, he
shifts to the third-person plural, “they,” yet combines it with the sin-
gular so as to form all of the blessed into one being: “Surely they will
rejoice with a whole heart, whole mind, and whole soul such that
their whole heart, whole mind, and whole soul will not be sufficient
[non sufficiat] for the fullness of joy” (S 120). Sufficiat is a singular
verb with what appears to be a plural subject, “their whole heart,
whole mind, and whole soul.” The unusual syntax affirms, however,
that “they” are now so unified as a whole people that a singular verb
indicates their joy. Moreover, each is so whole an individual that
heart, mind, and soul are fused into unity, indicated by the singular
verb. Although the narrator does not use the word “one” or mention
“the Mystical Body of Christ,” his final sentence enacts unity, and
we know that he is referring to the eternal Church of the blessed. It
is the last unity in the Proslogion because it is the final unity in the
Christian Bible and Creed.
The agency of this unity is “joy.” The blessed “enter into the joy
of the Lord” (26, S 121; Mt. 25:21), and the simple unity of the Trin-
ity (23) thereby communicates its Oneness to them by taking them

into Itself. Anselm the narrator refers to “entering into the joy of the
Lord” three times in his final chapter (S 121–22), and the last of
these comes in his final sentence. Appearing in the final two clauses
of the work, it receives particular emphasis: “until I enter into the
joy of my Lord, who is three and one God blessed for all ages” (26,
S 122). The narrator envisions entering into the Trinity’s own joy.
This is not a joy that God has and bestows, as though it were sepa-
rate from his being, for everything God has, he is. Rather, this joy is
the divine life itself and the blessed do not merely receive it, but en-
ter into it. By entering into God’s unity, they are unified—made
whole, or perfected—as individuals and as the Mystical Body of
Christ.
In this way, they are also made eternal, and therefore praesens.
The words “eternal” and praesens do not appear after chapter 22, de-
spite their importance in chapters 18B–22. But because everything
that rises must converge, in a Christian-Platonist ascent, the work
invites us to look for how these ideas are implied in its final chap-
ters. The analysis of the Trinity (23, S 117) elucidates God’s eternal
“presence to [himself]” (semper tibi sis praesens; 20, S 116), though
the key words are never used. Nevertheless, the relations between
the Three Persons clearly show how the Divine Unity can “inward-
ly” reflect himself so as to be present to himself: the Father generates
the Word, and the two are made one by their mutual Love, the Holy
Spirit (23). “Eternity” is also implied in the “unity” and “simplicity”
of each Person, as well as in the Trinity as a whole (23), for these
key words help to define God’s “whole eternity” earlier. Moreover,
the eternal life of the blessed, in chapter 25, is reflected by verbs in
the future tense describing their good and their joy, and their enter-
ing into God (26) confirms it. They become “whole” as individuals
and as the Church by participating in God’s “whole eternity”
(18B–22), where he is “wholly present” (tota praesens; 16, S 113). By
entering into God’s presence, they enter his eternal present. Their
blessedness, like his, will endure “for all ages” (in saecula; 26, S
122). Nevertheless, the sense of eternity communicated in chapters
23–26 is not that of “endless time,” as in chapter 13, but that of the
“whole eternity” (18B, S 115) of God’s presence as “only present be-
ing” (tantum praesens esse; 22, S 116). The blessed are so rapt in the
overflowing joy of the Lord “now” that an endless future is irrele-
vant.
Now we already knew, from the Christian tradition, that the
company of the blessed is held to be “one” and “eternal,” and that
eternity is the nunc stans (“the standing now,” or enduring present).
Hence, once we know to look for these key ideas in Anselm’s final
chapters, we readily find them there. Anselm did not rely on the tra-
dition to do his work for him, but he did orchestrate the ascent to
imply the key ideas even without the key words. Nonetheless, the
theological tradition makes these interpretive moves familiar, and
therefore easy to recognize.
So let us test the integrity of the ascent with a more difficult
problem. The theological progress of the narrator’s ascent, in chap-
ters 18B–22, hearkens back to themes in chapters 5, 12, and 13. His
analysis of God’s omniscience (6) and omnipotence (7) is entirely
ignored, and except for his hymn to God’s goodness (9), so, too, is
his examination of God’s mercy and justice (8–11). Are these gen-
uinely abandoned, or do they exist in the final ascent under some
other form? Granted, they are part of the narrator’s aim to “under-
stand what we believe about [God]” (2, S 101) and so remain a vital
part of the work at its lower stage, at least. But the structure of the
Christian-Platonist ascent invites us to see whether these under-
standings at a lower stage are reconfigured at a higher one. Let us
consider how God’s omniscience and omnipotence, in chapters 6
and 7, are reconfigured by later understandings.
The narrator’s analysis in chapter 13 provides a ground for un-
derstanding these earlier chapters, though he does not explore it.
Nevertheless, it is obvious that God knows everything (6) because
he is everywhere and always (13, S 110). Moreover, God is omnipo-

tent (7) because he is “whole at the same time everywhere” (13, S
110, my emphasis). Though God is “uncircumscribed,” he is not dif-
fused in space, like sunlight in air or water in a cloth, because he is
not a body. Rather, God is wholly present at once in every place, and
this is why he is omniscient and omnipotent. In this way, chapter 13
grounds, and thereby reconfigures, the understandings of chapters 6
and 7.
But the analysis of “eternity” in chapter 13 is explicitly revised in
chapters 18B–21, and this enables a magnified sense of God’s om-
niscience and omnipotence. As we have seen, in chapter 13 the nar-
rator understands “eternity” as “endless time.” Not until he reflects
on God’s “unity” (18B, S 114–15) does he begin to explore God’s
eternity as “whole” (S 115). We saw earlier how, as this exploration
unfolds, the narrator experiences a “reversal of perspectives”: from
“God is in all things” to “All things are in God.” The former draws
on images of extension and gives primacy to the world, while the
latter gives primacy to God, who contains all the times containing
all things, being beyond them all (19–22). From this perspective,
God’s omniscience and omnipotence appear to be much greater
than they were in chapters 6 and 7, for the extension of worldly exis-
tence in space and time proves a limited witness to the God who
contains and surpasses it. In other words, in chapters 19–22 God is
much bigger, as it were, than he is in chapters 6 and 7, and the
world is, concomitantly, much smaller.
The difference may be measured by different views of God’s cre-
ative activity as the ascent unfolds. In chapter 5, the narrator asserts,
in a rhetorical question, that God “made [ fecit] all other things out
of nothing” (S 104, my emphasis). Here God’s creation of the world
is a past act. This is true, as far as it goes. But it does not go as far as
the conclusion of chapter 22, which implies that God is continually
creating all things: “You, wholly sufficient to yourself, needing noth-
ing, whom all things need so that they may be and so that they may
be well” (S 117). In chapter 5, the world needed God in order to

come into existence “in the beginning” but, it would seem, not to
exist now. “All things” do not seem ontologically dependent on God
until the end of chapter 22. In chapters 5–13, in other words, the
world has a kind of independent existence and God pervades it with
his knowledge and power. In chapter 22, in contrast, the world is ut-
terly dependent on God in every moment. In chapters 6 and 7,
God’s omniscience and omnipotence fill the world. This is true, as
far as it goes, but chapter 22 reconfigures it: the world does not exist
except in God’s knowledge and power. The “all” in God’s being all
knowing and all powerful is much greater in chapter 22 than in
chapters 6 and 7.
The final chapters of the Proslogion, I would argue, heighten this
understanding, as they implicitly heighten every earlier understand-
ing in the work. In chapter 25, we are meant to understand, God
gives the narrator a prophetic vision of eschatologically transformed
life. Theologically, this is the new creation, the final and perfect one,
and therefore the greatest manifestation of God’s omnipotence.
Within the Proslogion, chapter 25 is also the greatest manifestation
of God’s omniscience and grace, as he gives the narrator a vision of
“the life to come” and a foretaste of its eternal beatitude. Here, too,
God’s justice and mercy (8–11) receive their highest manifestation
in the work. The narrator has prayed and labored ardently for an ex-
perience of God, and now he is being granted that experience in his
vitals, his intima (25B, S 120). This is his reward for all his efforts, in
justice, as it were. At the same time, his experience of “entering into
the joy of the Lord” (26, S 121–22) far exceeds anything he could
have desired, and this is God’s mercy.
There may be other ways in which God’s omniscience and om-
nipotence are reconfigured in the Proslogion, and certainly other
questions can be raised about relations between the stages of the as-
cent. I am trying to illustrate the kind of thinking that a Christian-
Platonist ascent is designed to engender. Clearly, the more remote
the stages of the ascent are from one another, the more difficult, and
more speculative, the meditation required. Let me turn, then, to the
famous argument in chapters 2–4 and consider how it may be re-
configured by later understandings in the work. My remarks do not
concern the logic of the argument, the most bruited scholarly issue,
but its character or, to be more precise, its characters: the narrator
who seeks God, the fool who denies him, and the God who is
sought.
Every Christian theology suggests an anthropology. Because hu-
man beings are held to be made “in God’s image,” statements about
the Original often imply understandings about the image, with cer-
tain qualifications. In chapter 13, for example, Anselm the narrator
reflects on God’s being unlimited and eternal in comparison to
those qualities in human beings (“created spirits”). We are “unlimit-
ed” insofar as we are not confined to our bodies: the whole soul is
present “in each of its members” (13), yet it can imagine and think
about things “elsewhere” (alicubi; S 110–11). The human soul can be
in two places at once, as it were, while God is wholly present every-
where. Similarly, the human soul is eternal because it has no end,
though it does have a beginning, while God has neither beginning
nor ending. God is uniquely unlimited and eternal, while human
beings are unlimited and eternal in a qualified sense.
This analogy opens the possibility of meditating on how God’s
later attributes in the Proslogion may be applied to human beings,
and with what qualifications. In what sense can a human being be
considered “one,” “whole,” and so on? In what ways, if any, does the
narrator’s rethinking of “eternity” in chapters 19–21 apply to hu-
man beings? We have already seen how the Proslogion answers these
questions in its final chapters. Each of the blessed becomes whole
and unified in the vision of God, where the threefold “whole heart,
whole mind, and whole soul” are given a singular verb (25, S 120).
At the same time, all of the blessed are unified in the Mystical Body
of Christ and so are made eternal: they “enter into the joy of the
Lord” and thereby partake of his eternity in a “joy that is full and
more than full” (26, S 120–21).
Yet we might well wonder, here below and short of the beatific
vision, in what sense a human being is “one” and “whole.” Can the
narrator reflect on God’s “unity” without being “one” in himself, in
some sense? I am arguing that Anselm designed the work precisely
to raise questions like this and to leave them unanswered. The
movement of the work reveals his understanding that human be-
ings are in via, on the road of a journey, where the final destination
is always present to lead us onward yet still ahead before us. A hu-
man being, then, is a “unity” and a “wholeness” in progress or, if
you prefer, in process. “One” and “whole” thereby prove analogous
terms, not only when used of God, but also when used of his im-
ages. There are degrees of “oneness” and “wholeness” in human be-
ings, and these do not reach perfection short of the beatific vision.
The same point may be viewed from a different perspective.
Anselm the narrator remarks on the relationship between the divine
Original and himself as image near the end of chapter 1: “You have
created in me this your image, so that mindful of you I may think of
you [ut tui memor te cogitem], I may love you” (S 100). Yet this image
has been so effaced by vices and sins that “it is not able to do what it
has been made for, unless you renew and reform it” (S 100).13 In the
course of the Proslogion, however, the narrator becomes ever more
mindful of God as he ponders God more deeply and is raised up to
love him with superabundant joy. In other words, the work gives
witness to God’s renewing and reforming Anselm the narrator. The
13. Anselm is implying Augustine’s psychological trinity of memory, under-

standing, and will, which reflects the original Trinity. See Saint Augustine, The
Trinity, translation and notes by Edmund Hill, O.P., edited by John E. Rotelle,
O.S.A., in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, vol. 5
(Brooklyn, N.Y.: New City Press, 1990), esp. Book 10. He is also alluding to
Augustine’s final prayer in that work: “Let me be mindful of you; let me under-
stand you; let me love you. Increase all these things in me until you have remade
me to the wholeness intended” (15.28.51).
narrator’s growing clarification about God implies God’s gradual

purification of him. As the narrator understands more surely that
God is one, whole, highest good, and so on, he is himself being re-
made in higher degrees of unity, wholeness, and goodness. To be
sure, he cannot sustain the final vision of joy, and his closing words
in the work form a prayer to meditate on it until God brings him to
the full reality. Nevertheless, Anselm the narrator has been changed
by his ascent: his new understanding of God has renewed the divine
image he is.
From this perspective, we may reflect on “the fool” in chapters
2–4, who “has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Ps 13:1). Schol-
ars generally treat this as merely a biblical tag on which to hang an
argument. I intend to show, however, that Anselm the author meant
us to reflect on the whole of Psalm 13 in relation to the whole
Proslogion. The fool remains a character in the work as a whole, even
though he is not mentioned after chapter 4. Nevertheless, just as the
narrator changes in the course of his ascent, so should our under-
standing of the fool. The full dimensions of the fool’s denial of God
appear only over the whole course of the Proslogion, though they are
explored in their negative sense in Psalm 13.
I will limit myself to two remarks. First, according to the Proslo-
gion, as we just saw, our power of thought arises from our being cre-
ated in God’s image. He created us to be mindful of Him, think of
Him, and love Him (1, S 100). Hence, in Anselm’s view, the fool’s
denial of God implies a radical denial of himself. The performance
of the denial wholly denies its content. The power of thought cannot
really contradict what enables thought in the first place, and this is
why the fool “could not think it” (cogitare non potuit; 4, S 103, my em-
phasis).14 He could say it in his heart and perhaps believe it as
deeply as he believes anything. But his act of thinking so contradicts
14. Gregory Schufreider, Confessions of a Rational Mystic, pp. 185–87, inter-

prets the impossibility of thinking God’s nonexistence in chapter 4 in a different,
though compatible, way.
the content of the thought that that content cannot truly be thought,
in the full sense of cogitare argued in chapter 4. An image cannot
deny the existence of its Original without radically denying itself.
The formula “that than which nothing greater can be thought” and
the ensuing argument are designed, in part, to reveal to the fool his
radical “absurdity” (3, S 103). He does not know that his denial of
God fundamentally denies itself and himself. The argument at-
tempts to reveal the fool’s self-contradiction and thereby enable him
to correct his path in life.
Second, he needs such correction. For the fool of Psalm 13 is
not some modern atheist, but one whose contempt for God makes
him ruthless. Such fools are “abominable in their ways” (Ps 13:1),
and “they have all gone astray”: they are “swift to shed blood. De-
struction and unhappiness [are] in their ways: and the way of peace
they have not known” (v. 3). The ascending path of the Proslogion re-
veals just how radical the fool’s self-contradiction is, for his denial
of God cuts him off from the profound aspirations that animate the
narrator’s ascent and are fulfilled in its final chapters. The fool—in-
sipiens, “unwise” and “tasteless”—will never taste the joy of the be-
atific vision. Nevertheless, the Proslogion implies, he longs for that
joy, by his very nature as a human being. As Augustine put it, God
“made us toward [himself], and our heart is restless until it rests in
[him]” (Conf. 1.1.1). In Anselm’s view, the fool deeply desires to ex-
perience the oneness, wholeness, self-presence, and love recorded in
chapter 25, and the superabundant Joy that bestows them. The
fool’s denial of God denies his innate aspirations to unity, whole-
ness, and love. He thereby condemns himself to “destruction and
unhappiness,” and he is swift to do violence against others because,
by his denial, he already commits violence against himself. In chap-
ters 2–4, we see how and why Anselm the narrator criticizes the
fool, at that level. Yet Anselm the author’s full critique of the fool
emerges only when we meditate on the Proslogion as a whole in rela-
tion to the fool in Psalm 13.
Just as our understanding of the narrator and the fool are recon-
figured over the work as a whole, so, too, is our understanding of
God in the famous argument. One of these reconfigurations is well
understood because the narrator makes it explicit: “that than which
nothing greater can be thought,” in chapter 2 (S 101), becomes
“[y]ou are greater than can be thought,” in chapter 15 (S 112). In
theory at least, every new stage in the ascent fills out and clarifies the
narrator’s understanding of God as having “the truest and therefore
the greatest being of all things” (verrissime omnium et ideo maxime
omnium habes esse; 3, S 103). Every new understanding of an issue
implicitly reconfigures an earlier one. I will remark on only three.15
The first reconfiguration is so slight that English translations
usually ignore it. It comes in the first sentence of chapter 5 and turns
on a single word. In chapters 2–3, God is “that than which nothing
greater is able [possit] to be thought.” Chapter 5 changes possit to
valet (S 105) which means “can, is able” but also “it benefits,” as in
its English cognate “avails.” Thus, with valet, the phrase can be trans-
lated “that than which nothing greater avails to be thought.” In oth-
er words, it benefits us to think this Being “than which nothing
greater can be thought.” The implied notion of benefit subtly intro-
duces the notion of “goodness.” It thereby prepares for the narra-
tor’s characterizing God’s “greatest being” (3, S 103) as “highest
good” and “whatever is better to be than not be” (5, S 104). The fur-
ther reconfiguration in chapter 15 uses both verbs: “but you are
something greater than can [possit] be thought. For since it avails
[valet] that something of this kind be thought to be .l.l.” (S 112).
Valet is usually construed as a simple synonym for possit, and that is
15. Scholars most commonly interpret the argument in chapters 2–4 in light
of the earlier Monologion, rather than the later chapters of the Proslogion. See, e.g.,
G. R. Evans, Anselm and Talking about God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), pp.
39–66; R. W. Southern, St. Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1990), pp. 113–37; and Gregory Schufreider, Confessions
of a Rational Mystic, pp. 99–102, 154–61, et passim.
true, as far as it goes. But in missing the overtone of “it benefits,” the
construal apprehends the Proslogion as merely an argument when it
is, primarily, a spiritual exercise.
The point is crucial. The Proslogion is Anselm the narrator’s strug-
gle “to raise his own mind to the contemplation of God” (Preface).
The narrator is engaged in a spiritual exercise, a meditative effort.
The famous argument in chapters 2–4 plays a part in this effort, as
do the passages of philosophical analysis. But, as we have seen
Anselm Stolz insist, they are never merely argument or analysis.
First and foremost, they are meditative movements of the narrator’s
mind toward God. The narrator’s subtle substitution of valet for pos-
sit is no merely rhetorical variatio. He is saying that it benefits us
when we attempt to think the Being greater than can be thought.
God made us “in his image” in order to do just that (1, S 100). The
climax of his ascent realizes this benefit in superabundant joy.
Second, this “Joy” is God’s final name in the Proslogion. “The joy
of the Lord” (gaudium Domini; 26, S 121–22) is not an objective
genitive—the joy that the Lord has—but a subjective one: the Joy
that the Lord is. He is “fullness of joy” (25B, S 120) and more than
fullness (26, S 121). This joy is the last word in the Proslogion on
God’s having maxime esse (3, S 103), “the greatest being.” “Being”
has become “joy” and “greatest” is now “full and more than full,”
that which goes “beyond measure” (supra modum; 26, S 121). In-
deed, although nothing can be greater than “greatest,” “greatest”
implies a measure and so is not great enough, for God is “greater
than can be thought” (15, S 112). To be sure, God does have “the
greatest being,” as chapter 3 affirms. Yet because the narrator’s intel-
lectual vision of God grows over the course of his ascent, “greatest”
itself becomes greater and greater. Chapters 18B–26 progressively
reconfigure God’s superlative greatness.
In this progressive reconfiguration, the Proslogion enacts the fa-
miliar truth that all our language about God is analogical and inad-
equate. God’s being always exceeds whatever predications we make
of it. However true they are as far as they go, they can never go far
enough. Anselm the narrator is so involved in his ascending visions
that he does not comment on the inadequacy of his language;
Anselm the author implied it in the movement of the Proslogion.
Hence, even the narrator’s “ecstatic” (and highly traditional) utter-
ances about the Trinity in chapter 23 should be understood as ulti-
mately inadequate, beautiful though they are. The Trinitarian dy-
namism of Good (Father), Truth (Son), and Love (Holy Spirit) is
reconfigured by the superabundant and transfiguring “Joy of the
Lord.” When the narrator recognizes, at the summit of his ascent,
that the experience of God ultimately exceeds all measure, all his
earlier language is implicitly reconfigured as inadequate.
Finally, because the narrator ascends to a vision of God as the
Trinity, we have warrant for seeking Trinitarian analogies in the
three chapters of the famous argument. This may be considered a
merely linguistic game today, but for Anselm and his contempo-
raries exploring Trinitarian analogies was a common theme for
meditation, and the meditative structure of the Proslogion invites it.
The argument, in fact, is framed by such analogies. A common
name for the Holy Spirit was “the gift of God” (donum Dei), and the
Son was commonly called the Word and associated with Truth (cf.
23, S 117).16 These analogues enable us to see how the narrator’s
opening and closing prayers in the argument allude to the Three
Persons. Chapter 2 opens, “Therefore, Lord [Father], you who give
[Spirit] understanding [Son] to faith.” The end of chapter 4 evokes
the same analogies: “Thanks be to you, good Lord [Father], thanks
be to you, because what I first believed with you giving [Spirit], I
now so understand [Son] with you illuminating [Spirit] .l.l.” (S
104).
Moreover, the argument itself has Trinitarian and incarnational
16. For the Holy Spirit as “the gift of God,” see Acts 2:38, Rom 5:5, and Con-
fessions 13.7–9.
analogies. In his “Preface,” Anselm described how, after a long and

frustrating struggle, the “one argument” he was seeking came to him
in a moment of grace and gave him joy (S 93). Evidently, this “one
argument” included the key formula “that than which nothing
greater can be thought,” even though the moment of inspiration
may well have embraced much more.17 This key formula, then, is a
“word,” analogous to the Word, inspired by the Holy Spirit. It unites
a physical sound (vox) and a nonphysical meaning (res) when it is
rightly understood (4, S 103). This is analogous to the incarnate
Word, visibly Man and invisibly God. Moreover, both the Ansel-
mian word and the incarnate Word are engendered by the Holy
Spirit and point unambiguously to the Father. For this Spirit-given
“word,” when rightly and truly thought (4), unites existence “in the
intellect” (in intellectu), analogous to the Son, and existence in reali-
ty (in re), analogous to the Father (2). In the famous argument, as in
Christian teaching about Christ, a divinely given word is manifested
in the world to unite human beings with the Father. From this per-
spective, the logic of the argument is Anselm’s original contribution
to theology, but its truth depends on its deep analogy with the sav-
ing truth of Incarnation and Trinity.
Contemporary philosophers interested in Anselm’s argument
are not likely to find this analogy compelling, and I cannot blame
them. By contemporary notions of what counts as philosophy, the
analogy is not relevant. But it is relevant to the kind of work Anselm
wrote: a meditative ascent by Anselm the narrator, inviting further
meditation by the reader. Anselm wrote the Proslogion as a spiritual
exercise for meditative readers, and he hoped that they would dis-
cover how the argument in chapters 2–4 foreshadows the work’s
Trinitarian finale by containing Trinitarian analogies. Because the
work is a coherent whole, its beginning foreshadows its ending, and
17. G. R. Evans, in Anselm and Talking about God, pp. 46–49, argues that
Anselm’s inspiration was not the key formula of chapter 2 but “an axiom” that
entailed it and the rest of the book’s exploration of God.
Anselm invited his readers to understand the relations between the

two. Because everything that rises must converge in a meditative as-
cent, key words are transformed in the course of the journey.
Anselm designed their transformations to effect the meditative read-
er’s transformation. The interpretations I have argued may be rather
distant from the interests of Anselm scholars. Nevertheless, they rep-
resent the kind of interpretive work that Anselm expected from his
meditative readers when he crafted his meditative ascent.
Despite the amount of scholarship on it, the Proslogion as a
whole contains unexplored riches. I have tried to show how Anselm
the author not only crafted the subtle beauties of its intellectual as-
cent but also implied understandings by relations between its
stages. We have seen how even the same key word comes to have
different meanings as the ascent progresses. God “is always” (sem-
per) in chapter 13 (S 110) and in chapter 20 (S 116), yet the latter as-
sertion implies more than the former, because it contains, as it were,
the analysis of God’s “whole eternity” in chapters 19–21. Similarly,
God is called “the highest good” (summum bonum) in chapter 5 and
in chapter 22, yet the narrator makes a significant journey in his un-
derstanding between the two, and so the latter proves a concomi-
tantly greater assertion. This change in meanings at different levels
is characteristic of a Christian-Platonist ascent. Reconfigured under-
standings are built into its very structure. They tend to be missed
when scholars think of the work as an “argument” written by the
historical Anselm. They emerge more clearly when we think of the
Proslogion as Anselm the author described it in his “Preface,” as the
journey “of one striving to elevate his own mind to the contempla-
tion of God and of seeking to understand what he believes.”
CHAPTER 5
RECOLLECTING ONESELF
Meditative Movement in The Consolation of Philosophy
UNLIKE THE Confessions and the Proslogion, which present them-

selves as ascents unfolding in the present, Boethius’s The Consolation
of Philosophy presents itself as the recollection of a discursive journey
that occurred in the past.1 According to its fiction, Philosophy, a
mysterious female figure, appeared to Boethius in prison as he was
lamenting his fate in elegiac verses, listening to the muses of poetry;
she banished the muses, revived Boethius from his stupor, diag-
nosed his spiritual illness, and provided a discursive therapy to heal
him. His dialogue with Philosophy has been completed in the past,
and Boethius has recollected and reconstructed it in a written work.
The fiction of The Consolation of Philosophy thereby implies two
Boethiuses: Boethius the prisoner, who received instruction by Phi-
losophy in the past, and Boethius the author, who has completed
her course and recalls it in writing.2
This distinction deserves more attention than it has received be-
1. On Boethius’s life and works in general, see Edmund Reiss, Boethius

(Boston: Twayne, 1982); and Henry Chadwick, Boethius: The Consolations of Mu-
sic, Logic, Theology, and Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), more detailed
than Reiss yet highly readable. Brief accounts may be found in V. E. Watts in his
Introduction to his translation of The Consolation of Philosophy (London: Penguin
Books, 1969) and in P. G. Walsh in his Introduction and Notes to his translation
(London: Oxford University Press, 1999).
2. This distinction is parallel to that between the young Augustine, in Books
1–9, and Augustine the narrator, recalling events in the past. For other parallels
between the Consolation and the Confessions, see Anna Crabbe, “Literary Design in
211
212 Recollecting Oneself
cause the state of the prisoner’s mind at the conclusion of Philoso-

phy’s teaching is unclear. In his last sustained utterance, near the
end of the work (V, 3), the prisoner quite misunderstands the rela-
tionship between Divine Providence and human free will, and so he
concludes that our prayers are unavailing and we are cut off from
our Divine Source.3 Philosophy labors to correct these misappre-
hensions, and her long discourse (V, 4–6) receives but a few brief re-
sponses from the prisoner. Hence, when we consider only the past
discourse recorded in The Consolation of Philosophy, the quality of
Boethius the prisoner’s understanding at the end remains unclear.
But when we consider the fact of his recollecting the discourse in its
details in order to write the work, we know that Boethius the author
has meditated thoroughly on the instruction he received. Although
the prisoner’s final understanding may be fragile or partial, the au-
thor’s is firm and entire, for he has recreated Philosophy’s dialogue
with himself and thereby assimilated it.
In other words, this distinction between Boethius the prisoner
and Boethius the author proves analogous to the difference between
the De Consolatione Philosophiae,” in Boethius: His Life, Thought, and Influence, edit-
ed by Margaret T. Gibson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981), pp. 237–74, esp. pp.
251–63; Reiss, Boethius, pp. 88–93; and Paul A. Olson, The Journey to Wisdom, pp.
68–71. For Boethius’s sources and influences, Joachim Gruber’s Kommentar zu
Bothius “De Consolatione Philosophiae,” Texte und Kommentare 9 (Berlin: de
Gruyter, 1978), is indispensable, and Friedrich Klingner’s De Boethii Consolatione
Philosophiae, Philologische Untersuchungen, No. 27 (Berlin: Weidman, 1921), re-
mains useful, as does Pierre Courcelle’s La Consolation de Philosophie dans la tradi-
tion litteraire. Antecedents et Posterite de Boece (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes,
1967). A brief treatment of the work’s legacy may be found in Reiss, Boethius, pp.
154–61; longer accounts include Howard Rollin Patch, The Tradition of Boethius:
A Study of His Importance in Medieval Culture (New York: Oxford University Press,
1935), and Richard A. Dwyer, Boethian Fictions: Narratives in the Medieval French
Versions of the “Consolatio Philosophiae” (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of
America, 1976).
3. All my references to the work and quotations from it are taken from
Boethii Philosophiae Consolatio, edited by Ludwig Bieler, Corpus Christianorum,
no. 94 (Turhholt: Brepols, 1957).
Recollecting Oneself 213
reading through the work, on the one hand, and rereading and
meditating upon it, on the other. Scholars interested in the thought
of the historical Boethius may find this distinction irrelevant to their
questions, yet their rereading and exploring the work enacts it. The
autobiographical structure of the work—past experience recalled
and reconstructed in writing—implicitly calls for the kind of reread-
ing and reflection that scholars have given it. In the course of The
Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius the prisoner receives the teaching
that enables him to become Boethius the author of the work we
have read. But he becomes the author not only by having a great
memory, but also by meditating on his experience with Philosophy
as a whole and thereby grasping its structure and meanings. We will
eventually see that the work enacts both an extensive and an inten-
sive recollection, a remembering of the past and a Platonist anamne-
sis, as the prisoner recovers a sense of his immortality of soul.
Scholarship on The Consolation of Philosophy, unlike that on the
Confessions and the Proslogion, has long considered it as simultane-
ously a literary and a philosophical work, coherent as a whole. Not
only have its arguments been studied but also its literary and philo-
sophical genres, and how the artistry of its poems figures in the ar-
gument as a whole.4 Moreover, accounts of its structure as an ascent
implicitly use the principle of retrospective understanding, appeal-
4. For substantial accounts of the whole work, see Reiss, Boethius, pp.
80–153; Chadwick, Consolations, pp. 223–53; and Seth Lerer, Boethius and Dia-
logue: Literary Method in the “Consolation of Philosophy” (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1985). Edward Kennard Rand, “On the Composition of
Boethius’ Consolatio Philosophiae,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 15 (1904):
1–28, remains useful. Gerard O’Daly, The Poetry of Boethius (London: Duckworth,
1991), provides a substantial account of the poems and their role in the work.
Boethius’s appeal to various genres in the work has been much considered. See
Pierre Courcelle, La Consolation, pp. 17–21, on the problem and on the tradition
of the consolatio, as well as Gruber, Kommentar, pp. 16–36. In addition to Lerer on
dialogue, Boethius and Dialogue, see F. Anne Payne on its Menippean satire in
Chaucer and Menippean Satire (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981),
ing to the ladder of cognitive acts in Book V to describe the move-

ment of the work.
This body of work enables me to abbreviate my treatment. I will
first describe the structure of the ascent on the basis of Philosophy’s
explicit program, what she says she is doing with the prisoner. We
will then examine the progression of circle imagery, in Books II–IV,
with its supersession in Book V. An account of Philosophy’s therapy
as properly anamnetic follows, in the third section, for she would
cure the prisoner by helping him recollect his immortality of soul,
with all this implies.5 Each of these sections uses the principle of ret-
rospective understanding in order to illuminate the pattern as a
whole. My final section offers a new account of the numerological
structure of The Consolation of Philosophy, based on numbers recon-
ciling solar and lunar motions and embodying Plato’s “divided
line.”
Structure of the Ascent

The Consolation of Philosophy consists of five books, but the as-
cent proper does not begin until the beginning of Book II. In the fi-
nal prose section of Book I, Philosophy diagnoses the prisoner’s ill-
ness and describes how she will begin to heal him, but her program
of therapy begins in Book II. At the beginning of Books II, III, IV,
and V, she describes what she intends to do for the prisoner, and
these descriptions prove coordinate with the hierarchy of cognitive
acts described in Book V. After reviewing that hierarchy, I will show
how it is coordinate with the therapeutic program stated by Philoso-
phy at prominent places in each book.
Near the end of the work, Philosophy distinguishes four differ-
pp. 55–85; and Thomas F. Curley, “How to Read the Consolation of Philosophy,”
Interpretation 14 (1986): 211–63, esp. pp. 243–53.
5. The first and third sections use some material from my earlier essay, “The
Structural Articulation of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy,” Medievalia et Hu-
manistica, n.s., 21 (1994): 55–72.
ent cognitive acts: sensation, imagination, reason, and understand-

ing (V, 4, 27–39). She links each with a level of being (V, 5, 1–4),
and each successive level of cognition sublates those below it, incor-
porating and surpassing it on a higher level. Sensation (sensus) ap-
prehends a form only in matter, while imagination (imaginatio) can
apprehend a form independently of its matter, which thereby en-
ables memory. The higher animals possess imaginatio, for they move
about and remember what to seek and what to avoid; sensation
alone is possessed by nonmoving creatures, like mollusks. Obvious-
ly, imagination incorporates and surpasses sensation, and analo-
gous sublations take place at the higher levels of knowing. Reason
(ratio) is uniquely a property of human beings, for we can grasp the
universal as well as the individual. Freedom of the will enters in at
this level, as Philosophy explained earlier (V, 2, 3–6). The highest
mode of knowledge, understanding (intelligentia) belongs only to
the divine, for God grasps “the simple Form,” which transcends the
boundaries of the created world. Nevertheless, Philosophy labors to
raise the prisoner “to the summit of that highest understanding” (V,
5, 12), for it seems possible for human beings to appreciate it by
touching it, so to speak, even though we cannot share wholly in it in
this life.6
Now in the final prose sentence of Book I, Philosophy describes
the prisoner’s illness metaphorically, and her program in Book II
continues the metaphor, both of which relate to the level of sensa-
tion. The prisoner suffers from a caligo, a cloud or a film, obscuring
his vision (intuitum) of the truth (I, 5, 21). The cloud consists of dis-
turbed emotions (perturbationum), “darknesses” that Philosophy
must remove so that the prisoner may “recognize the splendor of
the true light.” She intends to begin by using a mild remedy, apply-
ing “poultices” (fomentis) to his eyes (I, 5, 21). Both her description
6. Elaine Scarry and Thomas F. Curley III have also understood this hierarchy
as a structural model for the work. Our similarities and differences are discussed
below.
of an obscuring “cloud” and the remedy of “poultices” appeal to the

level of sensation, sight and touch, respectively.
So, too, her program for her acts in Book II continues to feature
images of sensation. All these instances are not only programmatic
but also prominently placed: the first one occurs in the first prose
section, and the others occur at the beginning of later prose sec-
tions. Philosophy begins with taste: “It is time for you to drink and
taste a mild and pleasant medicine which, once it has been assimi-
lated, will prepare the way for stronger drinks” (II, 1, 7). She is clear-
ly describing a metaphorical program, or sequence, for healing. Not
long afterward, Boethius the prisoner echoes this imagery, describ-
ing arguments she has been using as “smeared with the honey of
sweet rhetoric and music” (II, 3, 2). He is using the traditional im-
age of a cup of bitter medicine made palatable by honey smeared
on its rim. Philosophy’s reply returns to the imagery of touch: so far
her arguments have offered only “poultices” (fomenta; II, 3, 3) for
his pain; soon she will use fomenta that “penetrate more deeply” (II,
3, 4). Two chapters later, in the very first sentence, she acknowledges
that “because the poultices of [her] reasoning have already descend-
ed into [the prisoner],” she thinks “stronger ones” (validioribus) now
may be used (II, 5, 1). The imagery of sensation governs Philoso-
phy’s healing program in Book II with explicit statements in promi-
nent places.
Book II has healed the prisoner’s vision by removing the “cloud”
obscuring it. In Book III, Philosophy intends to direct the prisoner’s
vision, and her descriptions of her program works at the level of
imaginatio. First, she will show him the “images” (imagines; III, 1, 6)
of happiness that delude him, and then she will direct his sight in
the opposite direction to see the pattern (specimen; III, 1, 7) of true
happiness. Not only do the nouns imagines and specimen imply
imagination—the perceiving of a form apart from matter—but so
do the verbs Philosophy uses to describe her activity: she will at-
tempt “to sketch [designare] and to form an idea in the mind [infor-
mare] with words” (III, 1, 7).
At prominent places in Book III, Philosophy continues to use

the imagery of imaginatio to characterize her discursive activity.
Boethius the prisoner’s turning around occurs in prose section 9
which begins the second part of Book III. In its first sentence, Phi-
losophy describes her activity in sections 2–8 as “having pointed
out [ostendisse] the form [formam] of lying happiness” to him; now
that he “has seen this clearly” (perspicaciter intuearis), it is time “to
show him the true form” (vera monstrare; III, 9, 1). The language of
perceiving a forma uses the imagery of imaginatio, and it occurs often
in Book III. Philosophy earlier projected her program for prose sec-
tions 2–8 with this imagery: “You therefore have before your eyes
[ante oculos] the form [formam] of human happiness set forth:
wealth, honors, power, fame, pleasure” (III, 2, 12). We have seen
how she returns to this “form of lying happiness” in the first sen-
tence of prose section 9, and she calls it “the form of false happi-
ness” just before she commands the prisoner to “turn the gaze of his
mind in the opposite direction” (III, 9, 24), another image of imagi-
natio. She explains that he has seen “the images [imagines] of true
good” (III, 9, 31), imperfect goods, yet now he begins to intuit the
perfect good.
In the final three prose sections of Book III, the language of
imaginatio continues, yet it must be understood analogically, be-
cause it refers to perceiving the form of God. At the beginning of
prose section 10, she describes the summum bonum as “the form [for-
ma] of perfect good” (III, 10, 1). Later, she reminds the prisoner that
the “full and absolute good” must subsume all the aims of the vari-
ous goods “as though into one form” (III, 11, 5). She describes
God’s governing the universe as bringing its diverse parts together
“into one pattern” (formam; III, 12, 5). Book III then culminates in
the noble image of the circle. Philosophy’s argument linking “the
form of the good itself” (III, 12, 33) with “the form [forma] of the
divine substance” (III, 12, 37) has taken the corresponding form of
“a wondrous orb of the divine simplicity” (III, 12, 30). Her reason-
ing has so interconnected the highest good with true happiness and
the form of the divine substance that its “circularity” imitates the
eternal unity of God, which she likens to a sphere. The imagery of
imaginatio governs Philosophy’s program in Book III from begin-
ning to end, even though it must be understood analogically after
the prisoner’s turn in III, 9.
Having cleansed the prisoner’s vision of its obscuring “cloud” in
Book II and directed it toward the Divine Source of true happiness
in Book III, Philosophy’s final task is to help the prisoner attain it.
Attainment is an act of the will, and Book IV unfolds at the level of
ratio, the level at which “freedom of the will” (libertas arbitrii) enters
into the hierarchy of modes of cognition (V, 2, 3–6). Philosophy de-
clares this task at the end of the first prose section in Book IV: “And
because you have seen the form of true happiness, with me showing
it just now, and you have also recognized where it lies, I will point
out the way [viam] to you which may bear you back home, after run-
ning through all the things I think necessary as preliminaries” (IV, 1,
8). Philosophy clearly distinguishes the language of imaginatio for
what has passed in Book III, seeing a form, from the language of ratio
and free will, the act of journeying “home.” This is the first time in
the work that she has used the imagery of acting, as distinct from
seeing, for what the prisoner is to do.
Her next and final sentence in the prosa emphasizes the imagery
of journeying and the act of the prisoner’s mind: “And I will also af-
fix wings to your mind, with which it may be able to carry itself into
high heaven, so that, with your anxiety removed, you may return
safely into your fatherland by my leading, my paths, and also my
conveyance” (IV, 1, 9). Philosophy is not only the guide who points
out the road but also the path itself and the way to travel it. This im-
agery governs the poem that immediately follows. Philosophy de-
scribes an ascent on wings that surpasses the visible universe and
leads to “the Lord” (IV, m. 1, 19) who governs it; anyone who
makes this journey will recognize that “Here is my true fatherland”
(IV, m. 1, 25).
Language related to willing and acting govern not only the im-
agery Philosophy uses for her therapeutic program in Book IV but
also her philosophical themes in prose sections 2–4. Boethius the
prisoner complains against the anomaly that, even though a good
and omnipotent God rules the universe, the wicked prosper while
the good are trodden down (IV, 1, 3–5). Philosophy’s response fea-
tures the language of “free will”: intention, power, attainment. She
argues that only the good are truly powerful, for only they can attain
to the true happiness that all human beings desire. The wicked, in
contrast, are always weak because, however much they may seem to
prosper, they are powerless to attain the true happiness that they
seek (IV, 2–3). The apparent prosperity of the wicked, she argues,
confirms them in their powerlessness and misery, because their be-
lief in their own success imprisons them in their vices and necessar-
ily keeps them from attaining true happiness (IV, 4). The language
of free will inevitably animates her whole discourse in prose sec-
tions 2–4, featured in words for “power,” “intention,” “will,” and
“attainment”: posse, intentio, velle, perficere, and their cognates and
antonyms.
Rational free will also emerges in the dramatic action of Book
IV, when the prisoner suddenly becomes an insistent speaker: he in-
terrupts his teacher for the first time, initiates prose sections, and
even dominates one of them.7 From the time Philosophy began her
therapy in Book II, Boethius the prisoner has been the first speaker
only three times (II, 4 and 7, III, 11) in twenty prose sections. None
of these are marked as interruptions. But in the first sentence of
Book IV, the prisoner “[breaks] in abruptly” (abrupi) while Philoso-
phy is “just preparing to speak” (IV, 1, 1). At the level of ratio and
free will, ironically, the prisoner freely interrupts his teacher for the
first time, moved by his “grief” (maeroris). He is the first speaker
7. Seth Lerer, Boethius and Dialogue, pp. 168 and 217, notes the prisoner’s
new assertiveness in Books IV and V.
again in prose sections 2, 4, 5, and 6, and the first and the third of
these may be interruptions, for section 2 begins, “Then I exclaimed”
(Tum ego: Papae) and section 5 starts similarly, “At this, I” (Hic ego).
In the twelve prose sections of Book III, the prisoner is the first
speaker only once, while in the seven prose sections of Book IV he
acts as the first speaker in five. In addition, he proves the dominant
speaker in IV, 5, something he has not been since his long com-
plaint in I, 4. He raises so many questions that Philosophy’s begins
her next discourse, the longest in the work, “as though from a new
beginning” (velut ab alio orsa principio; IV, 6, 7).8 Boethius the pris-
oner has changed suddenly in his dialogue with Philosophy, and
this change reflects, among other things, the ascent of the work to
the level of ratio and free will.
Book V, the final book of The Consolation of Philosophy, proves
analogous to the highest level of knowledge, “understanding” (intel-
ligentia). Because intelligentia belongs “solely to the divine” (V, 5, 4),
Philosophy’s discourse can only point toward the perfect simplicity
of the divine mode of knowledge, not enact or achieve it. Neverthe-
less, she brings her teaching to a climax and a conclusion with a sus-
tained description of divinely eternal Providence in the final section
of the work. After describing intelligentia as the apex of the modes of
knowledge in prose section 4 (30–33), she concludes section 5 with
an exhortation to “raise ourselves into the summit of that highest
understanding” (V, 5, 12). Then, in prose section 6, she defines the
divine eternity as “the whole and perfect possession all at once of
unending life” (4) and distinguishes it from the “perpetual” exis-
tence of the universe (as the ancients conceived it), “unending in
time” (12). Philosophy goes on to describe the divine comprehen-
sion as transcending all time in its eternal present: “embracing all
things as though they were done already, it considers them in its
own simple thought” (15). On this basis, she contrasts God’s Provi-
8. Seth Lerer, Boethius and Dialogue, pp. 204–13, shows how IV, 6, redefines
the prisoner’s problems and marks a change in Philosophy’s method.
dence (providentia) from what the prisoner imagined as foreseeing

(praevidentia; 16–24), and defends the “necessary” order of things in
a way that includes both human free will and the divine freedom in
responding to prayers (25–48). In short, Philosophy attempts to
evoke in the prisoner as full a sense of the divine intelligentia as pos-
sible and uses it to resolve the problems he raised earlier (V, 3,). In
this way, the final sections of the work “raise us up into the summit
of [God’s] highest understanding” (V, 5, 12).
Book V also proves analogous to intelligentia in Philosophy’s
analysis of the whole hierarchy of modes of knowing, from sensa-
tion to “understanding” (V, 4, 27–39). This is possible only on the
basis of some grasp of the highest mode. According to her descrip-
tion, each higher mode sublates those below it. Hence, when intelli-
gentia “comprehends the Form itself, it also knows the universal of
reason and the form perceived by imagination and the sensible ma-
terial,” without using reason or imagination or having any senses
(V, 4, 32–33). This form of knowledge “is superior to the others be-
cause by its own nature it knows not only what is proper to it but
the other forms of knowledge below it” (V, 5, 4). Philosophy is able
to analyze the whole hierarchy of knowledge because she is working
analogously to the level of intelligentia, and so she can discuss it and
“the other forms of knowledge below it.”
Moreover, because intelligentia sublates “reason,” the language
of willing and acting in Book IV is sublated in Book V. This occurs
most obviously in Philosophy’s discussion of the “freedom of the
will” (libertas arbitrii) in prose section 2 and in her defense of divine
and human freedom in section 6. Acts of free will are grounded in
the freedom of the will, by definition. Philosophy’s defense of hu-
man and divine freedom in Book V surpasses her analysis of “pow-
er,” “will,” “intention,” and “attainment” in Book IV. This progres-
sion from “free will” in action to “the freedom of the will” is
analogous to a movement from ratio to its ultimate ground in intelli-
gentia.
Free will also animates the dramatic action of Book V in the

same way it did in Book IV. Book V begins with the prisoner inter-
rupting Philosophy (V, 1, 1), and he is the first speaker also in prose
sections 2 and 3. Moreover, he utters almost all of section 3 and all
of the poem that follows, something he has not done since his
lament in Book I (I, 4 and m. 5). He insists on Philosophy’s answer-
ing his questions, even though she regards them as adverse to her
goal of leading him back to his fatherland (V, 1, 4–6). The image of
the journey “home,” to the realm of God, continues to govern Phi-
losophy’s therapeutic program in Book V. Nevertheless, she feels ob-
ligated to answer the prisoner’s questions (V, 1, 1–3) and to counter
his serious errors filling prose section 3. How well she manages to
lead him “home” while correcting his errors remains a question, to
be considered later.
Book I remains to be considered, but it is easy to see how it joins
Book II at the level of sensation. When Philosophy first appears, the
prisoner’s eyes are “blinded with tears” and he is “dumb struck” (I,
1, 13). She describes him as oppressed by “stupor” and “lethargy”
(I, 2, 5), for he is oblitus sui, “forgetful of who he is” (I, 2, 6). In these
ways, Boethius the prisoner is almost below the level of sensation,
as it were. To rouse him, Philosophy resorts to touch, the lowest lev-
el of sensation, placing her hand on his breast (I, 2, 5) and then
wiping his eyes (I, 2, 6). When the darkness disappears, the prisoner
“[drinks in] the sky” (hausi caelum; I, 3, 1), an image of taste. Once
thoroughly roused, he utters a well-organized speech of lament and
a poem (I, 4 and m. 5), yet Boethius the author subsequently de-
scribes it as “barking” (delatravi; I, 5, 1)—that is, nearly meaningless
sounds. In these ways, Book I shows us the prisoner’s consciousness
at the lowest level, one analogous to sensation.
Now Elaine Scarry and Thomas F. Curley III have also argued
that the hierarchy of modes of knowledge in Book V offers a struc-
tural model for the Consolation as a whole. Although their accounts
differ slightly from one another and from mine, I will review them,
arguing that they offer support for the scheme proposed here. Ac-
cording to Scarry, the movement is sensation (Book I), imagination
(Book II), reason (Book IV), and intelligentia, which she calls “in-
sight” (Book V). She diagrams these four books as the base of a tri-
angle, with Book III rising above it, ascending to its peak in III, m.
9.9 Curley’s account envisions a slightly different movement: sensa-
tion (Book I), imagination (Book II), reason (Books III–IV), and in-
telligentia (Book V).10 My account agrees with both in locating sensa-
tion in Book I, reason in Book IV, and intelligentia in Book V. The
crux of our differences lies in Books II and III.
Neither Scarry nor Curley attends to Philosophy’s successive de-
scriptions of her program, as I do. Hence, they do not have a firm
criterion for evidence, and so they sometimes argue impressionisti-
cally. For example, both find imagination in Book II largely because
it contains the famous image of the wheel of Fortune. But, famous
though it is, Fortune’s wheel is mentioned only twice, and briefly at
that (II, 1, 9; II, 2, 9), hardly sufficient material to characterize all of
Book II. Neither Scarry nor Curley notices Philosophy’s use of the
language of sensation for her therapy in Book II, nor her persistent
appeal to the language of imagination in Book III, seeing imagines of
the good and then its true forma. As a result, neither knows quite
what to do with Book III: Scarry removes it altogether from the as-
cending pattern of the other books, and Curley ascribes it to “rea-
son” because there is more reasoning going on in Book III than in
Book II. In my view, then, where our accounts agree—on Books I,
IV, and V—they offer additional support for the structure proposed
here. Where we differ, on Books II and III, my appeal to Philoso-
9. See Elaine Scarry, “The Well-Rounded Sphere: The Metaphysical Structure

of the Consolation of Philosophy,” in Essays in the Numerical Criticism of Medieval
Literature, edited by Caroline D. Eckhardt (Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University
Press, 1980), pp. 91–140, esp. pp. 108–24.
10. See Thomas F. Curley, “How to Read the Consolation of Philosophy,” esp.
pp. 216–19.
phy’s explicit program offers a firm criterion for evidence, which

they lack. Above all, we all agree that The Consolation of Philosophy
enacts an ascent, and the key to this structure lies in the final book,
at its highest stage, precisely where one would expect it in a Platon-
ist work.
When we use Philosophy’s action as the criterion for under-
standing the structure of the Consolation, we also discover that each
of Books II through V has a tripartite structure.11 The first prose sec-
tion functions as a prologue, where Philosophy declares her pro-
gram for that book: the first part. In the second part, Philosophy
undertakes that program. The third part involves an explicit intensi-
fication or renewal of Philosophy’s action, and it occurs at roughly
the half-way point in each book. My preceding discussion has dwelt
upon the first and second part in Books II–V, though it has also
touched on the transition to the third part.
The most obvious instance comes in Book III, when Philosophy
turns the prisoner away from the imagines (III, 9, 24) of true good in
order to gaze upon its true form, elaborated in prose sections
10–12. Because these final three sections are each much longer than
the first eight ones, the prisoner’s turning point occurs in the middle
of Book III, as determined by its length, not by number of sections.
In Book II, Philosophy declares explicitly a new stage in her action,
inaugurating the third part at the beginning of prose section 5: “But
because the poultices of my reasonings already are already descend-
ing into you, I think that now stronger ones should be used” (II, 5,
1; cf. II, 3, 3–4). Because Book II has eight prose sections of similar
length, this sentence comes in the middle of the book. In Book 4,
Boethius the author observes that Philosophy renews her discourse,
in response to the prisoner’s insistent questions, “as though from a
11. For a different analysis, according to different criteria, see Joachim Gru-
ber, Kommentar, at the beginning of each of Books II–V. His analysis of structure
is based, not on Philosophy’s action, but on the philosophical content of each
book.
new beginning” (IV, 6, 7). Book IV, 6, proves the longest prose sec-
tion in the Consolation, and this phrase marks the beginning of Phi-
losophy’s sustained discourse at roughly the midpoint of Book IV.
Finally, the third part of Book V occurs at the beginning of prose sec-
tion 4, the middle of its six sections. The prisoner has dominated
prose section 3 and spoken all of the following poem, lamenting
that divine foreknowledge makes prayer unavailing and cuts human
beings off from our Divine Source. As we have seen, Philosophy is
almost the only speaker in prose sections 4–6, as she labors to cor-
rect the prisoner’s misunderstandings. She begins her correction, the
third part of Book V, at its center.
Hence, Philosophy’s therapeutic action on the prisoner provides
a criterion for understanding not only the ascent of the work as a
whole but also the tripartite structure of each of Books II–V. The as-
cent also enacts another tripartite structure: the Platonist pattern of
turning away from things outside oneself (extra se) to those within
oneself (intra se) and so rising to those above (supra se). The crucial
turn inward and upward occurs in III, 9. The goods of Fortune are
obviously external goods. The prisoner laments their loss in Book I,
and Philosophy delivers a sustained critique of Fortune and her
goods in Book II. In the first part of Book III, Philosophy reconsid-
ers these external goods at a higher level, with respect to their ends
(III, 2–8), adding a consideration of pleasure (III, 7), which is not
one of Fortune’s goods. In prose section 9, the prisoner understands
that these “mortal and transitory things” (III, 9, 27) cannot bring
the enduring happiness they seem to promise. Philosophy thereby
turns his gaze away from external things, apprehended by sense and
imagination, to look inward and upward toward the highest good,
true happiness, and the form of the divine substance, which are one
(III, 10–12). This inward and upward turn informs her discourse
over the rest of the work. Her discussion of willing at the level of ra-
tio in Book IV emerges from the inward turn in Book III. Her dis-
course moves upward, when she analyzes Providence and fate in IV,
6–7, and she fulfills this on a higher level in Book V, in her fullest
discussion of the divine intelligentia and Providence.
In sum, then, The Consolation of Philosophy is structured accord-
ing to fundamental Platonist patterns, enacting the turn away from
things extra se to those intra and supra in an ascent to progressively
higher modes of understanding. The hierarchy of modes of knowl-
edge, in Book V, provides the ground for Philosophy’s therapeutic
program as it unfolds in Books II–IV, and it clarifies the level of the
prisoner’s consciousness in Book I. The medicinal imagery of Book
II refers to sensation, as does the prisoner’s “stupor” and “barking”
in Book I; “seeing the form” in Book III enacts imaginatio; the im-
agery of journeying and the language of willing and acting in Book
IV embodies “reason” with its corollary, “free will”; and these are
continued in Book V, where the discussion of divine intelligentia,
eternity, and Providence is analogous to the highest mode of knowl-
edge. This is another instance of the kind of retrospective under-
standing we have seen in Augustine and Anselm. The highest level
in a Platonist ascent provides a key to the structure of the work as a
whole, for it makes intelligible, in a new way, utterances on the low-
er levels.
Metamorphoses of the Circle

The circle is the most obvious imaginative figure in The Consola-
tion of Philosophy. It appears, most famously, in the wheel of Fortune
in Book II. But it recurs in “the wondrous orb of the divine simplici-
ty” (III, 12, 30) at the climax of Book III and in the “revolving cir-
cles” (IV, 6, 15) of Fate, as distinct from the unmoving axis of Provi-
dence, in Book IV. The wheel of Fortune thereby foreshadows the
later circle images in the work. More importantly, each subsequent
image implicitly reconfigures our understanding of the earlier ones.
By exploring these three circle images as a pattern in the ascent, we
can understand the work’s forward and upward movement in a new
way, seeing how “literary imagery” and “philosophical content” in-
Metamorphoses of the Circle 227
teract. At the same time, we will see how later images reconfigure
our understanding of earlier ones, interpreting (as it were) backward
and downward. This process will be carried into Book V, where
there is no circle image, because the level of intelligentia, unlike that
of ratio (Book IV), supersedes the need for images in order to under-
stand. Nevertheless, because Book V articulates the most compre-
hensive understanding in the whole Consolation, it implicitly recon-
figures what is conveyed by the circle images on the lower levels of
the ascent. Hence, what follows is a sketch of meditative under-
standings. Boethius the author did not state these explicitly, and so
they cannot be discerned by the normal practices of analytic philos-
ophy. Rather, they are implied by the relations between levels in the
ascent, and so they can be discerned only by meditation on it.12
Although Fortune is named in Book I, she appears with her
wheel only in Book II, and Philosophy refers to it only in the first
two prose sections.13 She mentions it first at the end of the first
prose section, a place of emphasis. She focuses on the speed and
force (impetum) of the wheel as an emblem of Fortune’s constant in-
constancy and the inability of mortals to control her gifts: “Would
you truly attempt to halt the force of her whirling wheel? O most
stupid of all mortals, if fortune [fors] begins to hold firm, it ceases to
exist” (II, 1, 19). In her second reference, Philosophy again empha-
sizes the continual speed of the wheel as she impersonates Fortune,
using the royal “we”: “This is our power, we play this game continu-
ally: we spin the wheel in a whirling circle, and we rejoice to change
the lowest to the highest, the highest to the lowest” (II, 2, 9). The
wheel’s speed and its continual whirling correspond to the level of
sensation in Book II. There is no rationale to Fortune’s activity, and
12. John C. Magee performs this kind of meditative interpretation in “The

Boethian Wheels of Fortune and Fate,” Medieval Studies 49 (1987): 524–33.
13. See Howard R. Patch, The Goddess Fortuna in Medieval Literature (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1927), pp. 147–77, for the tradition on
Fortune’s wheel.
the wheel itself barely emerges as a visualizable image, so rapid and

unceasing is its whirling.
The circle image in Book III, in contrast, is not a rota (wheel) but
an orbis (circle, sphere). Its stability, constancy, and wholeness are
emphasized, for it is “the wondrous orb of the divine simplicity”
(III, 12, 30). This image is introduced by the prisoner as he begins
to summarize Philosophy’s arguments in prose sections 10–12, at
the climax of Book III. Her reasonings, he avers, are so circularly in-
terconnected as to imitate “the wondrous orb of the divine simplici-
ty.” Complete happiness is the highest good (summum bonum),
which is the highest God; to become truly happy a person must be-
come in some sense divine, for this divine “form of the good” is
sought by everything. By this goodness, which is himself, God gov-
erns the universe, and so evil has no real existence. And Philosophy,
according to the prisoner, unfolded her reasoning from “nothing ex-
trinsic” (III, 12, 31–35). Philosophy immediately confirms that the
circular form of her reasoning imitated the intrinsic wholeness of
“the form of the divine substance,” which she likens to a sphere,
quoting Parmenides (III, 12, 37–38). Just as the divine “sphere”
needs nothing extrinsic, being itself the highest good, so her argu-
ments imitated the divine wholeness by developing a series of im-
plications, each of which entailed all the others.
This stable orb of the divine goodness illuminates, in retrospect,
Fortune’s whirling wheel. The rapidity of Fortune’s wheel imitates,
albeit perversely, the stability of God’s goodness. Fortune appears to
be a powerful goddess only because human beings value the goods
in her control: wealth, high positions, kingship, and glory. But these
goods are not only inherently unstable, as Philosophy shows in
Book II, but they are not themselves what we humans truly seek, as
she shows in Book III. What we truly seek is enduring possession of
the good: those who seek wealth aim at self-sufficiency; those who
desire high positions seek respect (reverentia); he who desires king-
ship or association with kings strives for power; aspirants to glory
want renown (III, 2, 12–20; cf. III, 3–8). Self-sufficiency, respect,

power, and renown prove stable forms of the good only in the high-
est good (summum bonum), God, who unites them all. Wealth, high
positions, kingships, and glory point to this highest good, unbe-
knownst to themselves. They signify the summum bonum, but erring
mortals strive after the signifiers, rather than what they signify.
Hence, Fortune’s goods promise happiness, but their promise
proves false. What we truly seek is participation in the stable orb of
the divine goodness, for only that can give us enduring happiness.
The mutability of Fortune, so painful in Book II, becomes in Book
III a sign that we need to seek our true good in another direction.
Fortune’s whirling wheel thereby foreshadows the stable orb of
God’s goodness, and even signifies it: the wheel’s rapidity attempts
to imitate the divine stability, as a rapidly spinning top stands still.
The attempt fails, of course, and so the imitation proves perverse,
and thereby instructive.
This reconfigured understanding is confirmed by the circle im-
age in Book IV, which unites the two earlier ones. The “wondrous
orb of the divine simplicity” becomes the stable center of God’s
Providence, around which the moving circles of Fate revolve (IV, 6,
7–22), similar to Fortune’s wheel. In order to understand this com-
plex image, allow me to review the Ptolemaic cosmos and explain
Dante’s interpretive elaboration of Boethius’s text in Paradiso 28.
This elaboration will enable nonspecialists to return to Boethius’s
text with a clearer understanding.
The Ptolemaic cosmos is geocentric: the Earth sits, stable and un-
moving, at the center of the universe. Around it move the nine heav-
enly spheres with their stars: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun,
Mars, Jupiter Saturn, the fixed stars, and the primum mobile. The pri-
mum mobile, “first mover,” imparts its constant movement, the Mo-
tion of the Same, to all the spheres below it, carrying them around
the Earth once every twenty-four hours. (We believe that this occurs
because the Earth rotates on its axis once every twenty-four hours.)
Because the primum mobile is farthest away from the Earth, its diurnal
speed proves the fastest, covering a greater distance every twenty-
four hours. Conversely, because the Moon is the closest to the Earth,
its diurnal speed proves the slowest. In other words, the closer a
heavenly sphere is to the Earth, the slower its diurnal speed in the
Motion of the Same, and the farther away it is, the faster it moves.
Dante, like Thomas Aquinas and others, believed that the nine or-
ders of angels were the “movers” for the nine heavenly spheres, one
angelic order per sphere. The seraphim moved the primum mobile,
the ninth sphere; the cherubim moved the fixed stars in the eighth
sphere; and so on down to the angels (without a special name) who
governed the Moon.
But this pattern is inverted, in some respects, when Dante the
pilgrim gazes upward in Paradiso 28, and it confuses him, until Beat-
rice explains it. He sees a luminous central point (God), around
which are nine revolving circles of light (the angels) at progressively
greater distances. But the speed of their revolutions inverts that of
the material cosmos. The circle closest to the luminous center re-
volves the fastest. The next circle of light revolves somewhat more
slowly, but faster than those below it; the circle farthest away from
the center moves the slowest.
Beatrice explains that Dante is gazing at the dance of the angels
around God, and the spiritual order of the cosmos inverts the mate-
rial order. The seraphim, the movers of the ninth heavenly sphere,
are the circle closest to God: they revolve the fastest because they
burn with greater love and knowledge of God than the lower and
more distant angelic orders. The next circle is the cherubim, movers
of the eighth sphere, who imitate the seraphim, as it were, revolving
somewhat more slowly, because their love and knowledge of God
proves concomitantly less, though greater than the angelic orders
farther out. Although the arrangement of the angelic orders is in-
verted, with God at the center rather than the Earth, their relative
speeds remain the same. The seraphim, the closest to God and who
govern the ninth sphere, prove the fastest; the cherubim, the second
closest to God, who govern the eighth sphere, are the second fastest;
and so on down the line of the angelic orders. Dante the pilgrim’s
vision reveals that movement in the material universe is governed
by spiritual causes: the relative love and knowledge of God by the
angelic orders who move their corresponding heavenly spheres.
Dante’s text, like its Boethian archetype, implies a Platonist un-
derstanding of eternity, time, and circle imagery. According to the
Timaeus, “time is a moving image of eternity” (37d–e). So, too, does
a circle imitate its center, for the whole circle, in two dimensions, is
implicitly contained in its dimensionless center point. The center
point proves analogous to eternity, “the still point,” and the circular
dance of the angelic orders moving the heavenly spheres enacts
time, “the turning world.” The angels’ circular movement around
the luminous Center symbolizes their (necessarily) imperfect imita-
tion of God. God, the dimensionless and eternal Center, implicitly
contains all their motions in time, space, and change. In other
words, God’s eternal knowledge encompasses everything that un-
folds in the time and space of the material cosmos.
In The Consolation of Philosophy, the center is Divine Providence,
while the turning circles represent Fate mediating the plan of Provi-
dence to the cosmos. Philosophy is speaking. All that the moving
circles of Fate enact is implicitly contained in the stable Center of
Divine Providence. “Providence is the unmoving and simple form
of things to be accomplished; Fate, however, is the moving nexus
and temporal order of those things which the divine simplicity has
planned to be accomplished” (IV, 6, 13). Fate is subject to eternal
Providence, and whatever is subject to Fate, in time and space, is
thereby also subject to Providence (14). The circle image that fol-
lows proves both cosmological and moral, as so often in the Platon-
ist tradition. Although we are subject to the Fate contained in the
temporal movement of the heavenly spheres, Philosophy affirms
that we can attain a measure of freedom by cleaving spiritually to
the eternal Center:
“Imagine a series of revolving concentric circles. The innermost one

comes closest to the simplicity of the center, and itself forms a kind of
center for those outside it to turn around. The outermost circle turns
in a wider orbit, and the further it departs from the undivided center
point, the greater the space through which it extends. If anything con-
nects and allies itself with the center point, it is brought toward the
center’s simplicity and it thereby ceases to spread out. Similarly, what-
ever moves farther away from the first Mind is entangled in greater
chains of Fate, whereas whatever seeks more closely the Center of
things is concomitantly freer of Fate. If anything adheres to the firm-
ness of the supernal Mind, it is free of motion and passes beyond the
necessity of Fate. As the power of reasoning is toward the intellect, as
becoming is toward being, as time is toward eternity, as the circle is
toward its center, so is the ever-changing chain of Fate toward the sta-
ble simplicity of Providence.” (IV, 6, 15–17)
Three observations are in order. First, this circle image unites the
wheel of Fortune in Book II, and the “orb of the divine simplicity”
in Book III, and it thereby reinterprets and transforms them. For-
tune’s whirling wheel becomes the cosmic revolutions entailing Fate
in time, while the “orb of divine simplicity” becomes their Center,
symbolizing eternal Providence. Fortune no longer appears as an in-
dependent operator, as she does in Book II: she is clearly subject to
God. Although the divine “orb” is no longer a sphere, as it was in
Book III (12, 37), and is now a dimensionless center point, it never-
theless contains all the revolutions of Fate, which are comprehend-
ed in its simplicity as Providence. Book III, in other words, empha-
sizes the self-containment, the internal consistency, of God as like a
perfect sphere, while Book IV presents this divine simplicity as Prov-
idence comprehending everything that happens in the universe. In
this way, the circle image in Book IV implicitly reconfigures our un-
derstanding of those in Books II and III.
Second, this circle image aligns Fortune and her sublunary
goods with the Moon, and the Moon has a peculiar place in the cos-
mic movements. It should be obvious that the Moon is the planet
symbolic of Fortune. Not only is it closest to the Earth, but its move-
ments also govern the tides, and the sea is a traditional image of in-
constancy, like Fortune herself. The Moon’s phases make it the most
changeable of the heavenly bodies and so, again, like Fortune. In
mythology, the Moon is associated with Hecate, a goddess of dark
transformations, as sorceress and queen of the underworld—like
Fortune, a dangerous goddess.
Astronomically, moreover, the Moon is the lowest star, the
boundary between inconstant, and often violent, changes below it
and the regularity of heavenly movements above it. Also, its own
movements are peculiar, for it does not move along the ecliptic, like
the other planets. We believe that this happens because the Moon
revolves around the Earth, while the Earth and the other planets re-
volve around the Sun. In any event, the planes of the Sun’s and the
Moon’s orbits around the Earth intersect at an angle of 5 degrees, 9
minutes.14 Hence, from the perspective of the divine Center, the
Moon not only revolves the furthest away, but its movement proves
out of kilter. It is not off-center, for it is still governed by Divine
Providence, but its orbit proves nevertheless off-line. Similarly, Phi-
losophy implies, although the movement of Fortune’s wheel is gov-
erned by Providence, compared to the movements of the heavenly
spheres, it proves so out of kilter that it seems to have an independ-
ent motion. As we will see in the final section, this symbolic align-
ment of Fortune with the off-line lunar movements proves crucial to
the numerological structure of the Consolation.
Third, therefore, this circle image furthers Philosophy’s reorien-
tation of the prisoner from the earthly to the heavenly, begun in III,
9. God is growing larger in Philosophy’s discourse, as it were, and
earthly affairs are becoming smaller. (We saw something similar
happen in the Proslogion after chapter 18.) In Book II, Philosophy’s
14. See Robert Lawlor, “Ancient Temple Architecture,” p. 96, in Homage to Py-
thagoras: Rediscovering Sacred Science, ed. Christopher Bamford (Hudson, N.Y.:
Lindisfarne Press, 1980, 1982), pp. 35–132.
teaching is dominated by the goods of Fortune, and her focus is

earthly, or sublunary, those inconstant goods “below the Moon.” Af-
ter she turns the prisoner around in III, 9, 24 and sings her prayer to
God “who rules the universe with perpetual reason” (III, m. 9), she
unfolds the implications of “the wondrous orb of divine simplicity”
in sections 10–12. The final sections of Book III thereby dwell on
the divine sphere, and the earthly perspective largely disappears.
Then in Book IV, in the circle image we have just examined, God is
the cosmic center, not the Earth. Divine Providence generates the
heavenly movements entailing Fate, and the Earth stands at their
outermost edge. The Earth only receives the movements of Fate: it
has nothing properly its own to contribute to them. God occupies
the center of Philosophy’s cosmos and discourse, while Fortune
proves only his most distant tributary. In fact, God as Providence
comprehends and orders everything that happens in the universe, as
the center “contains” the circle.
Philosophy develops this point explicitly and at length at the
end of the work. She is continuing her effort to reorient the prisoner
toward a God-centered understanding of cosmic order, against
some resistance on his part. As we saw earlier, he insists on her an-
swering questions that divert her from the course she has planned
(V, 1, 1–8). His desire to know whether “chance” (casus) exists (V, 1,
3), for example, shows how influenced he still is by the earthly per-
spective of Fortune. So, too, do his errors in prose section 3. Philos-
ophy counters these by treating the hierarchy of modes of knowing,
in prose sections 4 and 5, as the prelude to raising up his mind
“into the summit of [God’s] highest understanding” (V, 5, 12). She
defines the divine eternity as “the whole and perfect possession all
at once of unending life” (V, 6, 4) and goes on to show how Provi-
dence, “embracing all things [complectens omnia] as though they
were done already, considers them in its own simple thought” (15).
Everything that has happened in the universe, is happening, and
ever will happen is known by God in the eternal “now,” all at once
“in its own simple thought.” Philosophy does not use a circle im-
age, because the level of divine intelligentia has no need of images
for understanding, as human reason does. Nevertheless, it is as
though she had said that God is both center and circumference of
all things, comprehending its all temporal happenings ever in his
eternal present.
In this way, Philosophy reinterprets the circle image of IV, 6 as
she clarifies its meaning. In that image, God seems to reign in the
center, even though he rules everywhere. The plan of Providence, sit-
uated in the center, is unfolded by Fate through ever more remote
circles, as though a king were governing through intermediaries in
remote provinces. Because this image represents Providence and
Fate spatially, God cannot be both center and circumference, for
these exclude each other. Hence, God seems remote from the Earth
and the inconstancies of Fortune. But, as the climax of the Consola-
tion makes clear, nothing could be further from the truth. God em-
braces all things (V, 6, 15) with his “whole and perfect possession
all at once of unending life” (V, 6, 4). He does not see all things
from a distance. Rather, they are directly present to him now, with
all their causes and effects, and so he is intimately present to them.
God does not observe all things from far away. Rather, they can be
said to take place in him. His knowledge is not like panoramic vi-
sion from a distance but, rather, an all-encompassing life. Hence,
human beings have free will even as God’s life governs all things, in-
cluding Fortune, providentially. And so Philosophy, in her final sen-
tence, exhorts the prisoner to good deeds by directing his vision to
the God who sees all things, not from afar, but from within (V, 6,
48).
In sum, then, this pattern of circle images illuminates the pris-
oner’s ascent as a gradual reorientation of perspective. First, the
wheel of Fortune imagery in Book II is Earth-centered in its values,
while “the wondrous orb of the divine simplicity” (III, 12, 30) reori-
ents the prisoner toward “heaven,” God as the summum bonum,
where alone true happiness can be found. From the latter perspec-
tive, Fortune’s wheel enacts a perverse imitation of the divine stabil-
ity, which is imaged as “far away,” a distant homeland (patria; IV, 1,
8–9) to which one must journey. Second, the circle image in IV, 6
reconfigures the relations between center and circumference: now
Divine Providence stands in the center, the circles of cosmic Fate re-
volve around him, and the Earth lies at the periphery. Fortune there-
by proves one of God’s minions in a divinely ordered cosmos, for
her wheel proves one of the circles of Fate governed by Providence.
Yet this image, because it is a spatial representation, continues to
separate the Earth from God, even though his Providence governs
earthly events through the intermediaries of Fate. Hence, finally, at
the end of the work we learn how the divine Center comprehends
all things without intermediaries. God embraces all things with his
whole and perfect possession all at once of unending life. No event
occurs apart from him, and the Divine Presence is intimately pres-
ent to every human being. Before, the prisoner was reoriented to-
ward a “distant” Providence at the center of the cosmos. Now that
Center embraces him. In God’s life, and nowhere else, he lives and
knows and acts. This has always been the case, throughout the
whole Consolation and before. Recognizing this truth and its conse-
quences enables him to receive fully the consolatio that Philosophy
offers him, to recollect himself.
Diagnosis and Cure: Recollecting Oneself

In the final prose section of Book I, Philosophy examines the
prisoner and diagnoses his spiritual illness. In Books II–V, she
undertakes a therapeutic program to cure him.15 As usual in the Pla-
tonist tradition, his illness proves simultaneously intellectual and
moral, and so, consequently, does her therapeutic program. That is,
15. This has often been observed. See Edmund Reiss, Boethius, p. 108; Seth
Lerer, Boethius and Dialogue, pp. 106–10; and Henry Chadwick, Consolations, p.
227, among others.
Diagnosis and Cure 237
we may distinguish intellectual from moral aspects of his condition

and her cure, but we cannot properly separate them. Hence, my for-
mula for his cure, “Recollecting Oneself,” has a double sense. The
first is intellectual: the prisoner needs to remember his immortality
of soul, with all it implies. It implies, among other things, the hu-
man being as the epitome of being, encompassing with his reason
the lower modes of knowledge, sensation, and imagination, and be-
ing able to apprehend the divine intelligentia (V, 4–6). The second is
moral: the prisoner must gain self-possession, self-mastery. In this
sense, “recollecting oneself” means to gather together again the
powers of one’s will in order to combat the perturbations of way-
ward emotions. Therein lies true “power” (potentia; III, 5 and m. 5),
as Philosophy suggests in many places. But these two forms of “rec-
ollecting oneself” entail one another and develop, or are corrupted,
together. In this section, I want to review her diagnosis and show
how her therapy works to effect the prisoner’s self-recollection in
this double sense.
Philosophy diagnoses three causes of the prisoner’s disease, in
increasing order of gravity. First, although the prisoner believes that
God governs the world, he does not know by what means (quibus
gubernaculis). Indeed, he barely understands what Philosophy
means by quibus gubernaculis (I, 6, 3–8). Second, although he knows
that God is the Origin (principium) of all things, he does not know
their end or goal (finis). Once he knew, but grief has dulled his
memory (I, 6, 10–12). At this point, Philosophy is puzzled: these
two forms of ignorance have the power “to dislocate a human be-
ing, but not to uproot him wholly from himself” (I, 6, 13), and the
prisoner is indeed uprooted. But the cause soon comes to light: the
prisoner affirms himself to be “a rational and mortal animal” (I, 6,
14–16, my emphasis). Philosophy now understands “the greatest
cause” of his disease: he has ceased to know himself (I, 6, 17). He
has forgotten that his mind—mens, the highest part of the soul—is
immortal. His condition is indeed grave. His ignorance of the
means by which God governs the world and of the end of all things
is capped by his self-ignorance of his immortality, “great causes not
only of disease but even of death” (I, 6, 19).
His self-ignorance of his immortality and Philosophy’s cure are
foreshadowed in their first encounter in Book I. After Philosophy
banishes the muses of poetry (I, 1, 7–12), we learn that the prison-
er’s eyes are so blinded with tears that he does not recognize her.
Overcome by heavy grief, an emotional “perturbation of mind,” he
is stupefied (I, 1, 13–14). Soon she diagnoses his illness as “lethar-
gy” (I, 2, 5), caused by self-oblivion: he is “forgetful of himself”
(oblitus sui). This phrase is a Latin idiom for states of semiconscious-
ness, but here it also indicates the oblivion of self-ignorance. Philos-
ophy wipes the tears from his eyes, “clouded by mortal concerns” (I,
2, 6), and he wakes up. Boethius the author describes his waking as
Mentem recepi (I, 3, 1): “I seized back my mind.” But the phrase also
means “I received [from Philosophy] mens,” the immortal part of
the soul. When the prisoner ceases to be “forgetful of himself,” he
regains mens.
The rest of the work is foreshadowed here. In different ways, at
different levels of the ascent, Philosophy is always trying to rouse
the prisoner, to wake him up: to help him recover mens. She coun-
ters his emotional perturbations in order to lead him toward self-
mastery. She works against his self-oblivion by leading him to rec-
ognize his immortality of soul, with all it implies. She wants him to
recollect himself, morally and intellectually, as fully as possible.
This will involve recognizing his kinship with God and his capacity
to apprehend the full range of being, from the material to the di-
vine.
Her therapeutic program emerges in two parts. She explains the
reason for these at the end of her diagnosis, and the dividing point
comes in III, 9, where she turns the prisoner away from images, and
toward the reality, of the good. She explains that she must first re-
store his intellectual vision before she can show him the truth, for
“the nature of souls is so constituted that, as often as they reject true

opinion, they take on false ones, from which arise the darkness of
perturbations that confuses their sight.” Hence, she must first “re-
move the darkness of deceiving emotions so that you may be able to
recognize the splendor of the true light” (I, 6, 21). In other words,
Philosophy must first remove the prisoner’s erroneous opinions,
and this she does by her two critiques of the goods of Fortune, in
Book II (1–8) and Book III (1–8). We have already seen how images
of “healing the eyes” govern Book II and “directing the vision” work
in Book III. Having thus cleared the ground (to change Philosophy’s
metaphor), she can sow the seed of truth, and it can grow without
obstruction by weeds. Philosophy does not begin to teach directly
against the “causes” of the prisoner’s disease until after III, 9, when,
for the first time, she turns him around and points him toward “the
splendor of the true light” (I, 6, 21), the “true and perfect good” (III,
9, 30), which turns out to be God (III, 10–12). As we will see in the
next section, III, 9, stands at the mathematical center of Philoso-
phy’s cure, the thirty-third of sixty-five sections, poetry and prose, in
Books II–V. Her efforts to turn around the prisoner prove to be the
center and hinge of her therapeutic program.
Soon thereafter, in the final sections of Book III, Philosophy
speaks directly to the three causes of the prisoner’s spiritual disease,
diagnosed at the end of Book I. First, he earlier knew that God gov-
erns the universe, but he did not know “by what means” (quibus gu-
bernaculis; I, 6, 3–8); Philosophy teaches him that God governs by
means of his own goodness, which is himself (III, 12, 2–22). Sec-
ond, in Book I, the prisoner knew that God is the Origin (principi-
um) of all things, but he did not know their end or goal (finis; I, 6,
10–12). In Book III, he learns that the end of all things is “the good”
(III, 11, 41), which is “one and the same substance” with happiness
(beatitudo) and God (III, 10, 42–43). All things seek the good, and
therefore they seek some participation in God, who is the Good. In
other words, God as the Good is both the Origin and End of all
things, and because all things seek the good, God governs them by
means of his own goodness, in which they necessarily seek to partic-
ipate.
In this way, Philosophy argues explicitly against two causes of
the prisoner’s illness. But the third cause was the gravest, his belief
that he is “a rational and mortal animal” (I, 6, 14–17), and Philoso-
phy makes no explicit argument for the immortality of the soul, as
is well known. Nevertheless, she mentions or implies this truth at
least three times in Books II–III. First, in Book II, she reminds him
that, in the past, he has been “persuaded and convinced by many
demonstrations that the souls of human beings [mentes hominum]
are in no way mortal” (II, 4, 28). Second, in the following prose sec-
tion, she tells him that human beings are “divine by merit of rea-
son” and that we are “like unto God in our souls” (deo mente consim-
iles; II, 5, 25–26). Hence, when human nature knows its likeness to
God, it excels all other things, but when it fails to know itself, it falls
below the beasts (II, 5, 29). Finally, Philosophy gives him a “corol-
lary” (III, 10, 22) to her teaching on true happiness (beatitudo):
“every happy person, therefore, is god.” Though only one God exists
by nature, every truly happy person (beatus) becomes divine by par-
ticipating in God’s beatitudo (III, 10, 25). Because God’s happiness is
his goodness, a person can become truly happy only by being
morally good. This participation in God’s happiness and goodness
makes a person truly happy and truly good (III, 10, 39–43). This
teaching fully implies the immortality of the soul.
In the final three prose sections of Book III, then, Philosophy
speaks directly to the problems at the root of the prisoner’s spiritual
disease.16 But she does not fully resolve them, as the prisoner’s later
questions and discourses prove (IV, 1 and 5; V, 1 and 3). His cure
cannot be effected merely by argument that shows him where true
16. For the structure of Book III as a whole, and the resolution of the prison-
er’s difficulties by an understanding of God, see A. Ghisalberti, “L’ascesa a Dio
nel III libro della Consolatio,” in Atti del Congresso internazionale di Studii Boeziani,
goodness and happiness lie (III, 10–12), for he must also be led to
his true homeland (IV, 1, 8–9; cf. V, 1, 4–5). Despite Philosophy’s
beautiful arguments describing “the wondrous orb of the divine
simplicity” (III, 12, 30), which speak to all the causes of his disease,
her achievement remains insecure because the prisoner is still ad-
versely affected by his “deep-seated grief” (IV, 1, 1). This emotional
perturbation gives rise to questions that divert the course of the
teaching she has planned (V, 1, 4–5). Moreover, she has been given
only a limited amount of time to be with the prisoner, and it is now
severely constrained (IV, 6, 5), so she is in haste to complete her
teaching (Festino; V, 1, 4). Does she succeed in leading the prisoner
to his true homeland, in Books IV–V, and thereby effect a cure? We
want to understand Philosophy’s attempted therapy and assess its
effectiveness against the prisoner’s insistent doubts.
Book IV moves the prisoner’s cure forward by resolving certain
consequences entailed by the three causes of his disease. She ex-
plains these consequences as she restates her diagnosis in Book I,
beginning with the most serious cause:
1. Because you are confounded in self-oblivion [by not remem-

bering your immortality of soul], you have grieved that you are both
an exile and are despoiled of your own proper goods (propriis bonis);
2. Because you do not know what the end (finis) of things is, you
judge worthless and wicked men to be both powerful and happy;
3. Because you have forgotten by what means the universe is
governed, you think that these vicissitudes of fortune occur without
a ruler (sine rectore; I, 6, 18–19).
The first two points are resolved in the first half of Book IV,
where Philosophy shows that virtue is its own reward and vice its
Pavia 5–8 Ottobre 1980, edited by L. Obertello (Rome: Herder, 1981), pp.
183–92; and Susan F. Wiltshire, “Boethius and the Summum Bonum,” Classical
Journal 67 (1972): 216–20.
own punishment (IV, 1, 7 ff). With respect to her first point, the
good man’s goodness (probitas) is always in his own power, for he
cannot lose it except by doing evil. Hence, his goodness is truly “his
own proper good.” It cannot be taken away by an outside force (IV,
3, 2–7) and it brings the greatest reward of all: immortal happiness,
participation in the divine (8–10). This is what all human beings
desire. Only the good are truly powerful because only they achieve
the enduring happiness we all desire. Conversely, with respect to her
second point, the wicked can never be happy, precisely because they
are wicked and therefore do not participate in the divine goodness
that brings happiness. Hence, the wicked are never truly powerful,
for all their worldly power cannot make them happy. In fact, the
wicked are profoundly impotent and frustrated, and their wicked-
ness is their punishment, which they cannot escape unless they be-
gin to be good (IV, 3, 11–12; IV, 4). In short, the good man always
possesses the goodness (probitas) that is his own proper good (pro-
prium bonum), and this makes him truly happy, while the wicked
man possesses only alien goods that can never make him happy.
Philosophy’s third point is addressed at some length in the sec-
ond half of Book IV, after the prisoner’s questions in IV, 5. As we saw
earlier, in response to these she makes a new beginning in her in-
struction (IV, 6, 7) and expounds the relations between Providence
and Fate (8–22). She then sets forth several examples of Providence
meting out favorable and adverse things to both good people and
wicked, like a wise doctor doing what is best for her patients
(23–52). She thereby shows that “order embraces all things” (53)
even though it is impossible to expound that order fully (54). In the
next and final prose section of the book, she sums up this discus-
sion in the formula “all fortune is good” (IV, 7, 2) and proves it to
the prisoner’s satisfaction. By the end of Book IV, he appears per-
suaded that all the vicissitudes of fortune occur according to the
wise plan of a good God.
In one sense, then, Philosophy’s therapeutic program is com-
plete by the end of Book IV: she has spoken directly to all three
causes of his disease (III, 10–12) and to the consequences they en-
tail (Book IV). What does Book V add to this? It provides a fitting
climax to her program by completing her cure of the prisoner’s self-
forgetful self-ignorance.17 We saw earlier that she rouses the prisoner
from his “lethargy” of being self-forgetful (oblitus sui; I, 2, 5–6), by
helping him to recover mens (I, 3, 1), and how this foreshadows her
whole therapy. Mens refers to the immortal part of the soul, and the
gravest cause of the prisoner’s disease lies in his belief that he is “a
rational and mortal animal” (I, 6, 14–17). Book V completes his
cure by helping him recollect himself as an immortal being in rela-
tionship with eternal God. Although Philosophy does not present
an argument for the immortality of the soul, she leads the prisoner
to a full sense of his immortality by her final discourse in the work.
The remedy for being self-forgetful (oblitus sui) is becoming self-
possessed (compos sui). The prisoner’s self-forgetfulness, let us recall,
is a disease affecting both his intellect and his will. Full self-posses-
sion, in contrast, implies complete self-recollection: the recovery of
his self-understanding as an immortal being and of his self-mastery
in willing only the good. Philosophy describes becoming self-
possessed (compos sui) as the crucial point (cardo, “hinge”) of high-
est happiness (II, 4, 23). She makes this point in tandem with the
crucial Platonist distinction between things “outside oneself” (extra
se) and those “within” (intra se; II, 4, 22). Only the latter are truly
“one’s own proper goods” (I, 6, 18). Philosophy’s distinction under-
lies the difference between the external goods of Fortune and the in-
ternal goods proper to one’s immortal nature, which can never be
taken away from the good man (II, 4, 23). It foreshadows the argu-
ment of IV, 3: the good man is always powerful and happy and like
unto God, and his goodness, pertaining properly to his mens, can
never be taken away by any outside force. To be compos sui, then, is
17. Donald F. Duclow makes a similar argument in “Perspective and Therapy

in Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 4
(1979): 334–43.
to possess oneself by possessing the goodness (probitas) proper to

one’s immortal nature.
The phrase compos sui is used only twice more in the work, once
negatively, once positively. Later in Book II, Philosophy asserts that
worldly power makes no one compos sui who is chained by vicious
lusts (II, 6, 18). What constitutes true power proves a central ques-
tion in the Consolation: Philosophy returns to this theme in the
work’s central poem, III, m. 5, “Qui se volet esse potentem” (“Whoever
wishes to be [truly] powerful”). What she states briefly in that
poem, she argues more fully in Book IV: true power is self-power,
self-mastery over one’s wayward emotions, the “perturbations of
mind.” True power is possessed only by the good man and never by
the wicked, because only the good man can achieve the enduring
happiness that all desire. In other words, true power is true self-
possession and can be achieved only through moral goodness. Lat-
er, in the work’s final prose section, Philosophy defines God as com-
pos sui in his eternal self-presence (V, 6, 8). Since the prisoner is an
animal “divine by merit of reason” (II, 5, 25), he can understand
himself as fully as possible only by understanding God as fully as
possible. He becomes happy only by participating in God’s happi-
ness (III, 10, 23). He can become self-possessed (compos sui) only by
participating in God’s perfect self-possession. This is the crucial
point (cardo; II, 4, 23) of the highest happiness he is seeking.
In other words, the prisoner’s self-forgetfulness is cured by his
recollecting himself in relation to God, which entails an under-
standing of the cosmic order. Philosophy treats these points most
fully in her final discourse (V, 4–6). She leads the prisoner to under-
stand his human nature in the universal context: at the horizon of
the animal and the divine, of time and eternity, of matter and spirit,
participating in both. She does this by expounding the hierarchy of
knowing faculties (V, 4), relating these to the substances possessing
them (V, 5), and defining eternity so as to treat God’s Providence (V,
6). She thereby offers him the fullest and highest self-understanding
in the Consolation. She aims to restore his mens and make him com-
pos sui by revealing God’s presence in his life (V, 6, 48). It completes
the cure of his self-forgetfulness by leading him to the fullest self-
recollection.18
She accomplishes all this as she responds to the prisoner’s errors
in his final discourse (V, 3). There he argues that divine “foreknowl-
edge” negates our freedom of will, renders our prayers useless, and
thereby sunders us from any vital contact with the Divine Source of
being. Philosophy’s final discourse reveals that God’s Providence
(providentia) proves far more powerful than the prisoner’s concep-
tion of divine “foreknowledge” (praescientia) would warrant, and yet
it preserves our freedom of will. She corrects each of his errors even
as she indicates the breathtaking scope of God’s knowledge. Com-
pared to his argument in V, 3, God’s providential knowledge proves
more awe-inspiring, human beings more capable and free, their re-
lationship more intimate and vital, and what is at stake in moral
goodness, more profound. Her final sentences exhort him to hope,
to pray, and to practice virtue. She turns the eyes of his soul to the
Divine Judge discerning all things and ordering them all in His vi-
sion. With this mutual gazing of the prisoner and God in mutual
self-presence, the work ends.
Philosophy’s final discourse refutes the prisoner’s errors in V, 3,
yet her very presence refutes them already, though she never says
this. The prisoner complains that God’s foreknowledge renders
prayers useless, but Philosophy’s presence proves that God an-
swered his need, even though he did not pray for help. The fiction
of the Consolation implies that Philosophy is God’s messenger to the
prisoner. Although he needed her desperately, he was so self-aban-
18. Luigi Alfonsi discusses the work in analogous terms, arguing that Philos-
ophy leads the prisoner away from the personal toward the universal. See “Storia
interiore e storia cosmica nella Consolatio boeziana,” Convivium, n.s., 3 (1955):
513–21. In a similar vein, see Thomas F. Curley’s remarks in “How to Read the
Consolation of Philosophy,” pp. 225–43.
doned in his grief that he did not seek her. We know this because,
when she comes to him in I, 1, he does not even recognize her. He
was not looking for her or hoping for her, and we can thereby infer
that he did not pray for her advent. Nevertheless, God sent Philoso-
phy to him. Her coming reveals God’s Providence, his care for right
order in the cosmos. In this way, the very action of the work argues
that God not only answers our prayers, but even responds to our
need when we are too bereft to ask.
Because the prisoner makes no response to Philosophy’s final
discourse, the success of her teaching remains in doubt within the
Consolation. Nevertheless, the fact of the Consolation removes all
doubt: Boethius the author’s recollecting and recording his dialogue
with Philosophy proves how deeply he has assimilated her teaching.
This aspect of the work’s fiction deserves more attention than it has
received. In order to understand it fully, we should first consider
briefly the role of recollection within the Consolation.
The prisoner’s ascent comes in two stages and involves two
kinds of recollection. The first stage is Books II–III and its form of
recollection is remembering by being reminded. The prisoner de-
scribes this stage at the beginning of Book IV: Philosophy has re-
minded him of things “forgotten recently on account of my grief at
my injury, nevertheless not unknown a short while ago” (IV, 1, 2).
He was not completely ignorant of these things, but had simply for-
gotten what he once learned. Now, thanks to her teaching in Books
II–III, he remembers them again. We might call this kind of recol-
lection “extensive.”
The second stage of recollection, in Books IV–V, is properly
anamnetic in the Platonist sense, and so we might call it “intensive.”
To be sure, all truths in a Platonist work can be said to have an
anamnetic character. The Consolation calls our attention to anamne-
sis explicitly in III, m. 11, and V, m. 3, spoken by Philosophy and
the prisoner, respectively. Nevertheless, not only is a Platonist ascent
necessarily anamnetic, in its recollective movement toward the Ori-
gin, but Books IV–V also enact an anamnetic progress in the under-
standings they present. In Book IV, the prisoner raises a host of
questions that he cannot resolve on his own. Philosophy answers
them by leading him to truths entirely new for him: not merely the
recollection of truths forgotten but the anamnetic recognition of
new truths. Later, as she begins her final discourse, she promises to
treat certain questions about Providence that no human being has
yet fully resolved: “This long-standing complaint about Providence
agitated Cicero and was explored by you yourself for a long time,
but it has not been carefully and thoroughly explained by any of
you philosophers” (V, 4, 1). In other words, Philosophy will lead
the prisoner to understandings new for everyone, not only himself.
Books IV–V thereby enact an anamnetic progress, from truths new
to the prisoner to truths new for us all. Just as the first stage of recol-
lection, in Books II–III, culminates in a treatment of God, so, too,
does the second, properly anamnetic stage, in Books IV–V. In a Pla-
tonist ascent, the way forward is the way back, to the recollection of
our Origin and End.
In this way, the prisoner is led to recollect himself: first, by re-
membering extensively vital truths he had forgotten, and then by an
intensive anamnesis of Divine Providence and his relationship to
God. Philosophy wants him to understand himself in the fullest
possible context, the Providential order of all things, and thereby to
acquire the fullest possible self-mastery. She wants him to become
fully compos sui, fully recollected in mind and will. Does she suc-
ceed?
The proof of her success is found not within the Consolation it-
self, but in the fact of its existence. Within the work, the prisoner
makes no response to her final discourse, and so we cannot tell how
well he has assimilated it. We have reason to doubt his full under-
standing because his last discourse in the work (V, 3) proves a care-
fully argued series of errors. Nevertheless, according to the fiction of
the Consolation, Boethius the prisoner has become Boethius the au-
thor by recollecting, in detail, his past dialogue with Philosophy.

This detailed recollection testifies to how fully that dialogue re-
stored his powers of intellect and will. At the end of the original en-
counter, the prisoner’s powers may not yet be completely restored,
and his understanding may yet be imperfect. But the fact that he has
recalled and reconstructed her teaching argues for his assimilation
of it.
In other words, according to its fiction, The Consolation of Philos-
ophy exists not just because the prisoner has a powerfully retentive
memory, but also because he has reflected profoundly upon what
Philosophy taught. Boethius the author comprehends not only his
past errors, as the prisoner, but the visionary perspective of Philoso-
phy herself. His memory is not only retentive but fully recollective
in his anamnetic grasp of Philosophy’s teaching. He has not only
undergone her instruction, as the prisoner, but also meditated upon
it—otherwise, he could not have reconstructed it. Moreover, his su-
perb achievement tells us how to understand the Consolation: not by
reading it through, like the prisoner, but by reconstructing it medi-
tatively in our souls, like Boethius the author. As the prisoner be-
comes Boethius the author of the whole work, he recollects himself
in the fullest possible way. He participates in the divine and thereby
becomes compos sui.
Outside the fiction of the work, we recognize how successfully
the historical Boethius achieved self-possession in his trials. We can-
not know how distraught by grief he actually was at his imprison-
ment, or whether for a time he gave himself over to the muses of
elegiac poetry as he lamented his fall. The fiction of the Consolation
does not assure us of historical facts. Nevertheless, it allows us to in-
fer that the historical Boethius felt his self-possession threatened by
his trials, and that he retained it, or regained it, by remembering
philosophy. He recollected himself, in part, by reconstructing a life
of philosophical study and meditation in The Consolation of Philoso-
phy. The work’s power and beauty indicate how fully the historical
Boethius proved compos sui in his imprisonment. One aspect of his
achievement is the work’s numerological structure, a latent yet ele-

gant design.
Numerological Structure
As a carefully designed Platonist work, The Consolation of Philoso-
phy should have a significant numerological structure, but we are
not quite sure what it is.19 Its composition in five books has some
numerological meanings clearly related to the work as a whole.
First, because every whole multiple of 5 ends in 5, the number is
“circular” and associated with “return.” “Five” thereby symbolizes
“the return of the soul to God,” a recurrent theme in the Consolation
and the dramatic and philosophical action of the work as a whole.
Second, it also symbolizes love, because it is the sum of the first
feminine and masculine numbers (2 + 3). Moreover, Mars is the
fifth planet out from the Earth and Venus is the fifth earthward from
Saturn, the outermost in the geocentric cosmos, and Mars and
Venus were lovers.20 Hence, 5 can also be said to symbolize the “love
that rules the universe,” celebrated at several points in the Consola-
tion.21 Finally, according to Macrobius, the number 5 “designates at
once all things in the higher and lower realms”: the Supreme God,
the Mind emanating from him, the world soul, the celestial realms,
and the terrestrial realm. In this way, “the number five marks the
19. Little has been published about the formal structure of the Consolation.
Joachim Gruber has discovered the arrangement of various meters around III, m.
9, as their center; see the foldout chart following p. 16 of his Kommentar, with his
discussion on pp. 19–24. Elaine Scarry’s proposals do not persuade me, yet they
are inventive and deserve more attention than they have received. David S.
Chamberlain, “The Philosophy of Music in the Consolatio of Boethius,” Speculum
45 (1970): 80–97, offers a careful discussion of musical references in the work,
but no analysis of its formal structure.
20. See Vincent Hopper, Medieval Number Symbolism, p. 102, and Russell A.
Peck, “Number as Cosmic Language,” in Eckhardt, ed., Essays in the Numerical
Criticism of Medieval Literature, pp. 15–64, esp. 60–61.
21. See Edmund Reiss, Boethius, pp. 152–53; on p. 189, n. 49, he cites five po-
ems celebrating this divine Love: I, m. 5, II, m. 8, III, m. 9, IV, m. 6, and V, m. 3.
sum total of the universe.”22 This Neoplatonist totality is envisioned

in several poems in the work, and its is articulated in its final prose
sections by way of the hierarchy of modes of knowledge, culminat-
ing in the intelligentia of Divine Providence. In short, 5 symbolizes
the totality of being and the circular movement of the soul’s return
to God, which manifests the divine love animating the cosmos—all
fundamental themes in The Consolation of Philosophy.
One would expect that its significant numbers would be cosmo-
logical, as is usual in the Platonist tradition, but the prominence of
the number 13 gives one pause. On the one hand, several poems in
the work appeal to the Timaeus tradition, where the order of the
heavens proves the model of the divine ordering of all things in the
cosmos. The most famous of these poems, III, m. 9, elaborately en-
acts the pattern of the world soul it describes in a numerologically
significant arrangement of lines. On the other hand, the Consolation
as a whole seems not to be structured according to the most impor-
tant cosmological numbers in the tradition: 7 (the planets), 8 (the
starry spheres), 12 (the zodiac), and so on. In fact, 13 proves a sig-
nificant number in the work, even though it is “the number of ill-
omen” and so not normally used for cosmological order. The work
consists of 39 sections of prose (3 3 13) and 39 poems, 78 sections
in all (6 3 13). Moreover, Book I has 13 sections, 7 of poetry and 6
of prose, and so Philosophy’s therapeutic program in Books II–V
has 65 (5 3 13). Boethius the author thereby indicates that 13
proves a significant number in the Consolation, but what it signifies
and how it functions in his whole design has not yet been under-
stood.
Seventy-eight is not usually a significant number in the tradi-
tion, but it can be recuperated: it is the sum of the whole numbers
from 1–12. As such, it can be considered a form of 12 and therefore,
like 12, a “perfect number.” Seventy-eight can thereby be considered
22. Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio 1.6.19–20.

a form of both 12 and 13, and thereby unifies (in some way) mean-
ings of both numbers. I will argue that the numerology of the Conso-
lation “reconciles” lunar and solar movements, associated respec-
tively with Fortune and the God governing the cosmos. Thirteen is
the number of lunar months in a year, while 12 is the number of so-
lar months and of the zodiac. Hence, 78, the total number of sec-
tions in the work, itself “reconciles” the lunar and solar associations
of 13 and 12.
There are other problems that a proposal for the numerological
structure of the work must confront. The first of these is the asym-
metrical distribution of sections across the five books. Consider the
following chart:
Book Number of poems Number of prose sections Total

I 7 6 13
II 8 8 16
III 12 12 24
IV 7 7 14
V 5 6 11
The final and climactic book has 11 sections, a numerological

anomaly for a work insisting on a providential order in all things.
Eleven, like 13, is not a number associated with order but with dis-
order, with excess and defect: it exceeds 10 and fails to reach 12,
both perfect numbers. Hence, a numerological design for the work
will not correspond precisely to its division into books. It will differ
somewhat from the ascent structure described in the first section of
this chapter, overlapping it in some respects. We will see, however,
that the numerological structure is centered on the prisoner’s in-
ward and upward turn in III, 9. In that way, it does correspond with
an explicit shift in the action of the work, distinct from its division
into books.
Another difficulty lies in the work’s two centers. It is often said
that III, 9, or III, m. 9, or both, are “the center” of The Consolation of
Philosophy.23 But though they may be thematically central, they are

not the mathematical center of the work as a whole. Its 39 poems
have a central poem, the 20th, III, m. 5, and its 39 prose sections
have their center in III, 6. The mathematical centrality of these two
sections must be acknowledged and incorporated into an under-
standing of the whole. Book III, m. 5, praises true power, not as ex-
tent of rule, but as one’s ability to govern one’s desires and emo-
tions, especially anger, anxiety (“black cares”), and “wretched
complaints” at ill fortune. This poem clearly accords with Philoso-
phy’s overriding aim, as described earlier: to bring the prisoner to
self-recollection and self-possession. She wants him to become as
fully compos sui as possible, and III, m. 5, treats this aim, albeit from
a limited perspective. The central prose section that follows it is Phi-
losophy’s critique of gloria (III, 6). Its thematic centrality is not so
obvious and will be argued later.
The thematic centrality of III, 9, has its mathematical corollary
only when we consider Books II–V, Philosophy’s therapeutic pro-
gram, as a distinct unit. It has 65 sections, and III, 9, is the 33rd of
these, their precise center. The poem that follows, III, m. 9, is pre-
sented as a prayer “[calling on] the Father of all things” (III, 9, 33)
for aid in finding “the abode of the highest good” (III, 9, 32). It
thereby inaugurates the second half of Philosophy’s program as a
whole. Hence, these sections do prove central to the Consolation
both thematically and mathematically, but only when we set Book I
aside as a “Prologue” and consider Books II–V as a significant whole
in itself.
The numerological design I wish to propose features 13 and 19
as key numbers, creating an ascending pattern proportioned accord-
ing to Plato’s “divided line,” with the turn in III, 9, dividing the low-
23. Pierre Courcelle and Joachim Gruber understand III, 9 as a turning point
from Aristotelian dialectic, prominent heretofore in the work, toward explicitly
Platonic themes, prominent in III, m. 9, and III, 10–12. See Courcelle, La Conso-
lation, p. 161; and Gruber, Kommentar, p. 272.
er from the upper half.24 Because there are 13 lunar months in a

year, I understand 13 to represent a reconciliation of lunar and solar
movements. Four weeks comprise a lunar month (4 3 7 = 28 days),
and 13 lunar months contain 52 weeks (4 3 13) and 364 days,
almost a full solar year. In this symbolism, lunar movements sym-
bolize the changeable order of things “under the moon” in the
Ptolemaic cosmos, including those on Fortune’s wheel. The solar
movements, in contrast, symbolize the cosmic order of the heavens
enacting the two motions of the world soul in the Timaeus tradition,
celebrated in III, m. 9, “O qui perpetua mundum ratione gubernas” (“O
you who govern the universe with perpetual reason”). That poem
contains 28 lines, a lunar number, and so itself embodies the recon-
ciliation of solar and lunar movements.25
As I understand it, the number 19 also proves significant in the
design of the Consolation. Where 13 symbolizes the reconciliation of
solar and lunar movements in the course of a year, 19 symbolizes
their reconciliation in the metonic cycle. Today this cycle is perhaps
best known in the recurrence of Easter on the same day in a 19-year
cycle. Because Easter occurs on the first Sunday after the first full
moon after the Spring equinox, it is determined by a combination
of solar and lunar movements, and its recurrence on the same calen-
dar date every 19 years represents the reconciliation of solar and lu-
nar movements in a perpetual calendar. But this metonic cycle was
known to the ancients, named after its discoverer Meton, an Athen-
ian in the fifth century B.C. He worked out the period of time in
which the Moon returns to the same apparent position with regard
to the Sun, so that the new and full moons occur at the same dates
in the corresponding year of each cycle. This cycle is generated by
24. Myra Uhlfelder told me, in 1981, that she thought Plato’s divided line
was crucial to the structure of the Consolation. I have taken this idea from her, but
I do not know whether she would agree with the structure outlined here.
25. On 7 and 28 as lunar numbers, see Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream
of Scipio 1.6.48–56.
the difference between the Sun’s and the Moon’s orbits around the
Earth, which intersect at an angle of 5 degrees, 9 minutes. It takes 19
years.
I divide the 78 sections of The Consolation of Philosophy into four
parts around the central division in III, 9, according to the following
pattern:
part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4

26 + 19 + 1 + 19 + 13
(I, 1–II, 7) (II, m. 7–III, m. 8) (III, 9) (III, m. 9–IV, m. 6) (IV, 7–V, 6)
Its proportions conform to those in Plato’s “divided line,” which has

four sections with a central division, two below and two above: the
second and third sections are equal, while the proportions of the
first and the fourth cannot be determined.26 Clearly, III, 9 acts as
the central division, with 19 sections on both sides of it. Because
part 1 contains 26 sections (2 3 13), Boethius’s structure retains the
symmetry of Plato’s divided line, with its uncertain proportion be-
tween its lowest and highest part.
Boethius has not only used the proportion but also adapted the
meaning of Plato’s line. Each section of the line is a mode of knowl-
edge. Those below the central division concern visible things: eikasia
(knowledge derived from reflections and shadows) and pistis
(knowledge derived from physical objects). In the Consolation, simi-
larly, the first two parts (I, 1–III, 8) concern things extra se, the exter-
nal goods of Fortune, known by sensation and imaginatio. In Plato’s
line, the two sections above the division concern intelligible things:
dianoia (mathematical objects) and noesis (the Platonic Forms).
Similarly, in Boethius, the final two parts (III, 10–V, 6) concern in-
telligible entities intra se and supra se, known by reason and intelli-
26. The “divided line” is explained at the end of Book VI of Plato’s Republic
(509d–511d). See The Republic of Plato, translated with Notes and an Interpretive
Essay by Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1968), esp. Bloom’s note and dia-
gram, pp. 464–65.
gentia: “the form of the divine substance” (III, 10–12), the princi-
ples of free will in its acting (IV, 1–4) and its liberty (V, 2), the hier-
archy of modes of knowing (V, 4–5), and the relations between free-
dom, fate, and Providence (IV, 6–7; V, 6). The hierarchy of modes of
knowledge in Boethius’s ascent roughly parallels that in Plato’s line.
Moreover, there is a fairly close correspondence between this di-
vision of the Consolation and the ascent described earlier, where
Books I–II correspond to the level of sensation, Book III to imagina-
tio, Book IV to reason, and Book V to intelligentia. The 26 sections of
part 1 (I, 1–II, 7) cover almost all of Books I–II, with only three sec-
tions remaining (II, m. 7–II, m. 8), and thereby comprise almost all
the level corresponding to sensation. Of the 19 sections in part 2 (II,
m. 7–III, 8), 16 are explicitly devoted to Philosophy’s program of
showing the prisoner the imagines of true good. Hence, part 2 large-
ly takes place at the level of imaginatio proper. The 19 sections in
part 3 (III, m. 9–IV, m. 6) cover almost all Book IV, at the level of ra-
tio, and the final sections of Book III, which enact imaginatio, not
properly, but analogically. These begin with a hymn to the divine
being who governs the universe according to “perpetual reason”
(perpetua ratione; III, m. 9, 1), and they culminate in a summation of
III, 10–12, where the plural “reasonings” is used four times to char-
acterize Philosophy’s discourse.27 In this way, part 3 partakes of ratio
from beginning to end. Finally, the 13 sections of part 4 (IV, 7–V, 6)
cover all of Book V, the level analogous to intelligentia, plus the two
final sections of Book 4: these could be considered a bridge passage
from ratio, governing Book IV, to intelligentia in Book V. With the
proviso of partial overlap and underlap, this numerological division
of the Consolation in four parts corresponds to the pattern of ascent
according to the division of books.
Unusual as Boethius’s use of the numbers 13 and 19 may be, the
27. For Philosophy’s “reasonings,” see rationes (III, 12, 25 and 38), rationum
(III, 12, 23), and rationibus (III, 12, 30), all in the latter half of III, 12, the culmi-
nating summary of III, 10–12.
implied lunar and solar symbolism is entirely traditional and ac-

cords fully with explicit features in the work’s discourse. In the
Ptolemaic cosmos, the Moon is the lowest of the stars, the closest to
Earth, and thus the most changeable of the heavenly bodies. Like
Fortune, the Moon is constantly inconstant, the heavenly body most
akin to the mutability of all sublunary things. Because its move-
ments influence the tides so strongly, it is associated with water, a
traditional Platonist image for the chaotic flux of sense experience.
Augustine associated the Moon with scientia, the knowledge of sen-
sible things that change, and contrasted it with the Sun as an image
of sapientia, the knowledge of things intelligible, divine and eternal
wisdom (Conf. 13.18; cf. 5.3).
Where the Moon is traditionally linked with inconstancy and its
attendant vices, the Sun symbolizes constancy and the correspon-
ding virtues. Just before Socrates explains “the divided line” in the
Republic, he uses the Sun as an image to clarify the Good. The Sun is
an ancient image of the highest divine power, and in Platonist
thought it often symbolizes the Good and the One. The Sun is also
an image of rule and good order.28 Its diurnal motion from east to
west along the celestial equator, in the Motion of the Same, governs
the hours of day and night, and its annual movement along the
ecliptic, in the Motion of the Different, governs the seasons of the
year. Hence, as the Sun governs the rhythms of all life on Earth by its
movements, it manifests most fully “the two motions” of the Same
and the Different in the world soul, according to the Timaeus tradi-
tion.
The Consolation of Philosophy as a whole aims to impress on the
prisoner a sense of the divine order in all things, not only in
the heavens above but also in the sublunary realm here below. The
numbers 13 and 19 represent this universal divine order by their
28. See Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio 1.20.1–8, on these so-
lar traditions.
reconciliation of the Sun, as symbol for the manifest heavenly order,

and the Moon, a symbol for the hidden order of sublunary things.
They are cosmic numbers because they are “numbers of time,” but
as numbers for complete cycles of time, they symbolize perpetuity
and, thus, at one remove, eternity. Thirteen and 19 symbolize per-
petual recurrence, the “perpetual reason” with which the eternal
God governs the universe (III, m. 9, 1). Thirteen lunar months in a
solar year marks the annual reconciliation of Moon and Sun, and
19 years in a perpetual calendar marks a larger pattern of recurrence
and reconciliation. Because the four-part numerological structure
does not conform to the division of the Consolation into five books,
it represents a “hidden” order in the work, much like the order of
sublunary things. This deeper and reconciling order cannot be dis-
covered by reading the Consolation but only by rereading it and med-
itating upon it. In other words, to discover a hidden order like this
one must imitate Boethius the prisoner in his work as Boethius the
author, recalling and reconstructing his past experience with Philos-
ophy. In this way, her work is more deeply assimilated, and her Con-
solation more profoundly consoles.
I would suggest that the numbers 13 and 19 function signifi-
cantly in III, m. 9, albeit in a hidden, because oblique, way. In this
way, the poem can be said to dance the reconciliation of lunar and
solar symbolism. It is well understood that the poem’s 28 lines
praise the divine ruler of the universe for 21 lines and close with 7
lines of petition.29 Nevertheless, its first sentence is a long address
comprising 9 lines, summarizing the creation as a whole before pre-
senting certain details in lines 10–21. Hence, that first sentence al-
lows a division of the poem into a 9-line introduction and 19 lines
developing its consequences, the details of creation (10–21) and re-
turn (22–28). From this perspective, the 9 lines (1–9) are analogous
29. For a detailed analysis in English of this poem, see Robert M. Durling
and Ronald L. Martinez, Time and the Crystal, pp. 11–18, with their notes, pp.
333–36.
to the cosmos as a whole, with its 9 heavenly spheres, while the 19

lines (10–28) represent the reconciliation of “lunar” change and
“solar” changelessness in the cosmic process. The importance of the
number 13 to the poem is already well recognized: it introduces
God’s formation of the world soul (13–17) as “the center moving
all things of the threefold nature” (Tu triplicis mediam naturae cuncta
moventem; 13). Hence, though line 13 is not quite the mathematical
center of the 28 lines, it names the world soul as a “center” (medi-
am), before the poem describes the world soul’s division into the
motions of the Same and the Different (14–17).
This oblique numerology of solar and lunar reconciliation in III,
m. 9, is supported by better known aspects of the poem. I have al-
ready suggested that 28 is a lunar number because the week comes
from the Hebrew calendar, a lunar one. Hence, the usual division of
the poem into 21 + 7 lines is also lunar. At the same time, solar im-
agery lies behind the opening address to God as “O you who govern
the universe with perpetual reason.” The perpetual order of the cos-
mos is manifested most prominently by the Sun, whose daily and
annual motions govern the rhythms of life on Earth. Since these two
motions manifest those of the world soul, III, m. 9, effects a recon-
ciliation of solar imagery with lunar numerology.
I have argued that Boethius indicates, in several ways, the impor-
tance of the number 13 for the numerology of the Consolation. De-
spite the role of 19 in the four-part structure I am describing, 13 re-
mains the dominant partner, for parts 1, 3, and 4 end on sections
that are multiples of 13. Part 1 ends with II, 7, the 26th section (2 3
13) of the work, part 3 with IV, m. 6, the 65th (5 3 13), and part 4
with V, 6, the 78th (6 3 13). Hence, we might expect the 13th num-
bered sections in the work to articulate its major themes in signifi-
cant ways. To be sure, these themes would also be expressed else-
where and, in principle, any section of the work can be connected
with them. Nevertheless, a survey of the 13th numbered sections
shows how resoundingly they strike these themes, especially in the
later parts of the Consolation.
The last three 13th numbered sections articulate the grand

philosophical visions of the work. Allow me to review them briefly,
in reverse order. The final section, V, 6, is the 78th (6 3 13) in the
Consolation and concludes part 4. It offers the work’s fullest resolu-
tion of Divine Providence governing the universe and human free
will acting in it, with the richest account of God’s eternal knowl-
edge. The 65th section (5 3 13) is IV, m. 6, “Si vis celsi iura Tonantis,”
which concludes part 3. This poem describes the divine ordering of
the cosmos (1–5), in the heavens (6–18), and on the earth (19–33),
which God rules by way of a “common love” (communis amor; 44)
animating all things to return to their Source (34–48). Both of these
sections clearly concern the divine order of the cosmos, and thus
the reconciliation of lunar and solar symbolism implied in the
number 13. The 52nd section (4 3 13) is III, 12. We have seen how
this prose section summarizes III, 10–12, and climaxes with Philos-
ophy’s circular reasoning, establishing the unity of the highest good,
true happiness, and the form of the divine substance. This “vision”
of true happiness governs the rest of Philosophy’s therapeutic pro-
gram in Books IV–V: to lead the prisoner to his heavenly fatherland,
his true home. These three sections present majestic understandings
of the divine: in itself (III, 12), in governing the cosmos (IV, m. 6),
and as eternal Providence embracing all things (V, 6).
The first three 13th sections precede the prisoner’s turn in III, 9.
Hence, they concern Philosophy’s efforts to reform and restore the
prisoner. The 39th section (3 3 13) is III, m. 5, the mathematically
central poem of the whole Consolation. As I said earlier, it treats
briefly the theme of true power, overcoming adverse emotions, and
thereby participates in Philosophy’s aim to make the prisoner com-
pos sui. The 13th section of the work functions similarly. It is I, m. 7,
“Nubibus atribus,” the final section in Book I. Philosophy has just
completed her diagnosis of the prisoner (I, 6) and this poem begins
with two images for his perturbations of soul (1–19)—the sea
roiled by storm winds and a river crashing against a boulder. Its fi-
nal 12 lines explain what he must do to regain his self-possession:
overcome the four Stoic perturbations of joy, fear, hope, and sadness
(20–31). The poem not only reflects Philosophy’s aim of making
the prisoner compos sui but also begins her enactment of it.
The 26th section (2 3 13) is II, 7, which concludes part 1. It is
Philosophy’s critique of gloria (fame, reputation) as a good of For-
tune. It thereby connects with the mathematically central prose sec-
tion of the work as a whole, III, 6, also a critique of gloria. Why did
Boethius the author want to emphasize Philosophy’s critique of glo-
ria in these two ways? As I understand the issue, fame is the noblest
of the goods and aspirations criticized by Philosophy. In the Home-
ric tradition, immortality could only be achieved by gloria, “immor-
tal fame.” The philosophical tradition, however, reenvisioned im-
mortality as inherent in the soul, with immortal reward consequent
on moral, rather than simply heroic, conduct. Hence, Philosophy’s
two critiques of gloria open onto the question of where true immor-
tality lies. We have seen how central this question is to the Consola-
tion. In III, 6, Philosophy touches on this issue in her one reference
to “the wise man” (sapientis), who “measures his own good, not by
the winds of popularity, but by the truth of self knowledge” (veritate
conscientiae; III, 6, 3). The wise man recognizes his immortality of
soul and does not seek fulfillment through earthly fame. In the final
sentence of II, 7, Philosophy speaks more directly of the immortal
soul and its destiny: “If the mind remains conscious of itself when,
loosed from its earthly prison, it freely seeks heaven, would it not
then scorn all earthly business because, by enjoying heaven, it re-
joices in being delivered from earthly things?” (II, 7, 23). In the final
sentence of the 26th section, the climax of part 1, Philosophy re-
turns to the central concern of her therapy, pointing to the soul’s ul-
timate fulfillment after the death of the body.
In sum, the numerological structure I have outlined solves sever-
al problems in the numerology of The Consolation of Philosophy. First,
it acknowledges the thematic centrality of the prisoner’s turn in III,
9, and finds it mathematically central to Philosophy’s therapy in
Books II–V. Second, the importance of 13 in this structure also illu-
minates the role of the mathematically central poem and prose sec-
tion of the whole work. Its 39th section is the central poem of the
whole (III, m. 5), and its 26th section (II, 7), which ends part 1, cor-
responds with the central prose section (III, 6) in their critique of
gloria. Third, the numbers 13 and 19, unusual though they are in
the Platonist cosmological tradition, have a thematic meaning fully
consonant with it and with the whole Consolation: the reconciliation
of “lunar” mutability and “solar” constancy in the providential or-
der of all things. Finally, this numerological structure transcends the
division of the Consolation into five books, where the 11 sections of
Book V and the 13 sections of Book I prove numerologically anom-
alous. It thereby proves a latent design, yet one adapting a famous
Platonic image, “the divided line,” in its meanings and proportion.
This latent design in the work imitates the hidden order of Provi-
dence in the sublunary realm, a fundamental theme of the Consola-
tion.
If we set aside Book I as a “Prologue” and consider only Philoso-
phy’s program in Books II–V, the numerological division looks
slightly different and has some important analogues. Because Book
I has 13 sections, the 13th numbered sections reviewed above retain
their place and importance as 13s. Let us consider the pattern in this
revised division:
part 1 p part 2 part 3 part 4

13 + 19 + 1 + 19 + 13
(II, 1–II, 7) (II, m. 7–III, m. 8) (III, 9)(III, m. 9–IV, m. 6)(IV, 7–V, 8)
This symmetrical pattern proves a numerological chiasm: 13 + 19 +

1 + 19 + 13 may be represented chiastically as A B C B A. As we saw
in Chapter 1, a chiasm is sometimes called an inclusio or a “ring-
structure,” because its ends in an analogue of its beginning. Hence,
this structure imitates procession and return. Here is a fundamental
Platonist pattern: this circular movement animates all things and
governs the processes of the universe. The Consolation celebrates it in
many places, among them III, m. 9, which begins part 3, and IV, m.
6, which concludes it in a 13th section. The chiastic structure of Phi-

losophy’s “divided line” in her therapy of ascent also proves a circle,
miming procession and return.
The chiasm is also a cosmological figure. In the Timaeus, the
demiurge takes the world soul and divides it into two parts, the Mo-
tion of the Same and the Motion of the Different, joining them in a
chi, an X-pattern. Philosophy recalls this division of the world soul
in the central lines of III, m. 9 (13–17): the crossing point of the
heavenly motions takes place as the poem crosses its midpoint.
Hence, the numerological chiasm of Books II–V dances, insofar as a
linear progress can, the chi of the world soul in its two motions. In
short, Boethius the author’s “divided line” proves a cosmological
figure.
This, too, he has adapted from Plato. Although the divided line
is explicitly an epistemological image, Plato derived it from the cos-
mological image of “the golden chain” in Iliad 8.10–27, as Zdravko
Planinc has shown.30 There Zeus threatens the gods with punish-
ment if they disobey him: he will hurl the disobedient down to Tar-
tarus, which is as far below the earth as the earth is below heaven
(ouranos; 8.16). As in the divided line, there are four elements—
heaven, earth, Hades, and Tartarus—with a fixed proportion relating
some, but not all, of them, and so no set of proportions emerges for
the whole. Then Zeus boasts of his strength. He imagines a “golden
chain” let down from heaven to the earth, and all the gods together
attempting to pull him down to ground. Zeus insists not only that
they could not move him but also that he, whenever he wishes,
could pull up them up with all the earth and sea (17–27). Just as
Zeus, the greatest god, stands unmoved atop the golden chain of the
cosmos, so does the Good, divine and like the sun (Republic
508b–9a), stand metaphorically atop the divided line (509d–11d),
for the Good is the source of both the knowledge of things and their
30. Zdravko Planinc, Plato’s Political Philosophy: Prudence in the “Republic” and
the “Laws” (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991), pp. 166–69.
being, although it is itself “beyond being, exceeding it in dignity

and power” (Republic 509b).31 Plato has transformed Homer’s Zeus,
the most powerful of many gods, into the Good, the Source of every
existing thing and of our knowledge of them, whether they are visi-
ble or intelligible entities. He has also changed the cosmological
image of “the golden chain,” with its four elements and proportion-
al structure, into the divided line, according to which the full range
of things in the cosmos, both visible and intelligible, are known.
Plato’s divided line unites its epistemological foreground with its
cosmological background.
The ancients understood this, as Pierre Leveque shows in his
meticulous assemblage of ancient commentaries on “the golden
chain.” His first chapter reviews cosmological allegories, while his
second turns to the link between human beings and higher powers.
In Neoplatonist commentary, these spiritual powers prove just as
much within us as they do above us, for things intra se lead to and
participate in those supra se. Porphyry understood Homer’s “golden
chain” to represent the hierarchy of spiritual powers extending from
the highest God to the material universe.32 For Macrobius, these
powers include Mind and Soul as hypostases emanating from the
Supreme God, from whom “even to the bottommost dregs of the
universe there is one tie, binding at every link and never broken.
This is the golden chain of Homer which, he tells us, God ordered
to hang down from the sky to the earth.” In his very next sentence,
Macrobius observes that “of all the creatures on earth man alone
has a common share in Mind.”33 In other words, the “golden chain”
is an allegory not only of the external cosmos, but also of the inner
faculties of knowledge linking us with “the Supreme God.” In the
31. The Republic of Plato, trans. Allan Bloom. Bloom does not capitalize “the
Good.”
32. Pierre Leveque, Aurea Catena Homeri: Une Etude sur L’Allegorie Grecque,
Annales Litteraires de l’Universite de Besancon, vol. 27 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres,
1959), p. 56.
33. Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio 1.14.14–15.
language of The Consolation of Philosophy (V, 4–5), because we are

animate beings, we participate in Soul, giving us the powers of sen-
sation and imaginatio, shared by the animals; because we have “a
common share in Mind,” we also have ratio and can appreciate intel-
ligentia. In Neoplatonist allegory, the cosmological “golden chain”
implies an epistemological one akin to Plato’s “divided line.”
In sum, then, the latent structure of Philosophy’s therapy proves
a chiastically structured divided line. As the line enacts its epistemo-
logical ascent, from sensation to intelligentia, its chiasm imitates a
circle simultaneously cosmic, as procession and return, and cosmo-
logical, as the chi pattern of the Motions of the Same and the Differ-
ent. Boethius thereby created an icon for Platonist meditation. As
the master plan for The Consolation of Philosophy, every prose section
and poem can be understood in relation to it, as a stage in the line
of ascent and as a moment in the circularity of Platonist cosmic
processes. If one’s understanding of philosophy is limited to argu-
ment and analysis, this structure seems negligible. But in a medita-
tive philosophy, aiming at personal transformation, an icon like this
resonates with meanings, and meditation on it enables them to be
deeply assimilated. As I argued in Chapter 1, this icon unifies and
ramifies the meanings of the work: every topic is related to it, and
through it any topic can be related to every other one. In this way,
The Consolation of Philosophy, as a work for meditation, proves inex-
haustible.
Clearly, this was Boethius’s aim. In the dramatic and philosoph-
ical action of the Consolation, Philosophy labors not merely to in-
form the prisoner of ideas he has forgotten, but also to transform
his orientation and the attitudes causing him to suffer. Boethius the
author sought to work analogously on his readers. He structured the
work so that it does what it says, enacts what it talks about: it leads
us on a “linear” progress that ascends “circularly” back to our Ori-
gin. The icon of its latent structure is supposed to work upon sympa-
thetic readers even when they do not perceive it, for their reading
and rereading dances its movement and it thereby enters into them.
Although Boethius hid the design of this icon, it was part of his de-
signs on his readers: because it enacts processes fundamental to the
cosmos, as he understood it, he could expect readers to be moved
fundamentally by its movement. Nevertheless, Boethius hoped that
his best readers would discover this structure and meditate upon it.
A more conventional numerology governs the number of sec-
tions in which Philosophy proves the leading speaker. There are 70,
the number of wisdom (7) multiplied by perfection (10). Three po-
ems are presented as the prisoner’s (I, m. 1, and m. 4, V, m. 3) and
one is narrated retrospectively by Boethius the author (I, m. 3). The
prisoner’s voice dominates three prose sections (I, 4; IV, 5; V, 3) and
Boethius the author narrates one restrospectively (I, 1). When we
subtract these 8 sections from the 78 in the whole Consolation, 70
are left over. Since 4 poems and 4 prose sections belong to Boethius,
as prisoner and author, Philosophy speaks 35 poems and is the
leading speaker in 35 prose sections. According to Plutarch, the
number 35 symbolizes harmony, for it is the sum of the first femi-
nine and the first masculine cubes (8 + 27).34 Philosophy’s speaking
in the Consolation therefore embodies, numerologically, the perfec-
tion of wisdom (7 3 10 = 70) and harmony (35) in perfect balance
(35 + 35).35
In this way, then, are Philosophy’s poetry and prose perfectly
34. Plutarch, De animae procreatione, cited by Vincent Hopper, Medieval Num-

ber Symbolism, p. 45.
35. Two German scholars, Hermann Trankle and M. Baltes, have argued that
the Consolatio is incomplete. See Hermann Trankle, “Ist die Philosophiae Consolatio
des Boethius zum vorgesehenen Abschluss gelangt?,” Vigiliae Christianae 31
(1977): 148–154; and M. Baltes, “Gott, Welt, Mensch in der Consolatio Philosophi-
ae des Boethius. Die Consolatio Philosophiae als ein Dockument platonischer und
neoplatonischer Philosophie,” Vigiliae Christianae 34 (1980): 313–80. Clearly,
my understanding of the work’s numerological perfection argues otherwise. See
O’Daly, The Poetry of Boethius, pp. 28–29, for a summary of Trankle’s point and
an intelligent response, with which I wholly agree.
balanced in the work. This is a numerological illumination of her

poise as a teacher, one instance of balance in the chiastic design of
her therapeutic program. Poetry and prose, literary imagery and
philosophical argument, dramatic action and meditative ascent are
all beautifully integrated in The Consolation of Philosophy. Its latent
numerological structure fits perfectly with its central themes and its
movement as a whole. To be sure, there is more to be discovered
about these aspects of the work. Nevertheless, whatever we discover
will argue the integrity of Boethius’s design in The Consolation of Phi-
losophy and its power as a spiritual exercise, in the tradition of the
Platonist ascent, to form the souls of those who would meditate
upon it.
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INDEX
Alfonsi, Luigi, 245 See meditative philosophy, Augus-

allegory, 30, 43, 57, 70–71, 74, 98–109, tine's
120, 124, 132, 141–42, 155–56, Author, vii–xii, 21, 29. See Anselm, the
263–64; of the church, 30, 71, 98, author; Augustine, the author;
101–2, 109, 142, 155; on the creation Boethius, the author; Dante, the au-
of the church in Conf. 13, 101–9, thor
141–42, 155; on God's fifth act, 103;
on God's first act, 103; on God's ninth Baltes, M. Gott, 265
act, 109; on God's second act, 103 Bamford, Christopher, 233
Alter, Robert, 58 Barnes, Jonathan, 15
Anselm: the author, 47–51, 62, 159–64, Barnhart, Bruno, 37
173, 182–87, 194–95, 204–10; the Bianchi, Enzo, 33
narrator, 47–48, 62, 159–76, 182–83, Bible, 18, 23, 33, 43, 55–58, 61, 67, 94,
186, 190–95, 198, 202–9. See Proslo- 101–2, 121, 130–31, 146–56, 173,
gion 196–97
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 6, 15, 18, 23, 230 Boethius: the author, x, 45, 211–13,
Ascent: Christian–Platonic, ix–xiv, 2–3, 222–27, 238, 246–48, 250, 257,
9, 20, 25–26, 29–31, 42, 44, 53, 262–65; the prisoner, x, 44–45, 61,
65–66, 69, 73–74, 77, 84, 90–98, 211–13, 217, 220–22, 247, 257. See
110–11, 119, 131–32, 139–44, Consolation of Philosophy
151–52, 155, 158–60, 164, 173, Bonaventure, xii–xiii, 95–97
195–201, 210; meditative, vi, xi–xii, Bouissou, G., 79
1–5, 8–22, 25–26, 29–32, 41–42, 46, Bourke, Vernon J., 116, 143
50–65, 71, 75, 196, 209–10, 266; nar- Boyde, Patrick, 13, 38
rator's, 48, 98, 102, 132, 142, 144–47, Breyfogle, Todd, 71
151, 155, 162–64, 170, 174–76, 180, Brodie, Thomas L., 58
185, 188, 191, 195–96, 199, 205; pil- Brown, Peter, 59, 79, 152
grim's, 11, 22; Platonic, 226, 246, Bubacz, Bruce, 269
266 Burke, Kenneth, 7, 69
Asher, Lyell, 113
Augustine; the author, 52–55, 62, 66, Callahan, J. F., 148, 269
79–158; the bishop, 45–46, 52, 78; Carruthers, Mary, 50, 148, 152
the narrator, 52, 62, 66, 70, 79–158, Cayre, F., 70
211; the young, 25, 45–46–, 52–54, Chadwick, Henry, 11, 15, 54, 134, 211,
62, 68, 74–79, 88, 94, 100, 104–40, 213, 236
146, 156, 211; and conversion, Chamberlain, David S., 249
139–55; and friendship, 119–38; and chiastic structure or pattern, 36–42, 61,
memory, 143–52; and time, 148–51. 75–76, 93, 111, 119, 130, 136–38,
281
282 Index
chiastic structure or pattern (cont.) Eckhardt, Caroline D., 34, 35, 223, 249
174, 261–66 Evans, G. R., 206, 209
Christ, 10, 19, 22–25, 38, 41, 56, 67–68, exitus–reditus, viii, 1, 5, 18–19, 38, 69,
71, 77, 102, 106, 120, 125, 135, 142, 94
147, 173, 197–98, 202, 209
church, 22, 30–33, 43, 68, 70–77, Ferrari, Leo C., 25, 55, 113, 119, 167,
93–102, 106–11, 127–29, 132–36, 272
141–42, 146–51, 154–55, 197. See al- Fichter, Andrew, 66, 131
legory, of the church; allegory, on the Fitzgerald, Allan D., O.S.A., 64, 66, 116
creation of the church in Conf. 13 foreshadowing, 23–28; and fulfillment,
Cipriani, Nello, O.S.A., 116 14, 22–28, 120, 196
circle, 16–19, 38–43, 61, 149–50, 173, Freccero, John, 41, 45, 78
214, 217, 226–36, 262–64
Clark, Mary T., 70 Gadamer, Hans–Georg, 95
Clement of Alexandria, 71 Ghisalberti, A., 240
Colish, Marcia, 3, 14, 15 Gibson, Margaret T., 15, 212
Commedia, vii, xi–xii, 2–4, 10, 16, Gruber, Joachim, 212, 213, 249, 252
20–26, 30–31, 34–35, 44–45, 61–62,
97; love in, 16, 30–31. See Dante Hadot, Pierre, 32–33, 57
Confessions, 3–4, 10–12, 25–27, 43, Hardt, Manfred, 35
51–55, 61–158 Hawkins, Peter, 78
Consolation of Philosophy, vii–viii, hermeneutics, 54, 111, 145–46, 154–57
xi–xii, 31, 36, 41, 44–45, 59–61, 135, Herrera, Robert A., 165, 177
211–14, 220–27, 231–36, 240, Hick, John, 165
243–66. See Boethius hierarchy of analogies, 111, 132, 142
Cooper, John C., 70 hierarchy of being, 12, 15
Courcelle, Piere, 100, 212, 213, 252 Hopper, Vincent Foster, 34, 249, 265
Crabbe, Anna, 211
Crosson, Frederick, J., 75 Illich, Ivan, 50
Crouse, R. D., 70 Inferno, 3–4, 10, 16–20, 24, 26; love in,
Culpepper, R. Alan, 58 4, 30. See Dante
Curley, Thomas F., 214, 215, 222–23,
245 journey, x, xii, 1–5, 8–13, 19–20, 24,
Curtius, Ernst Robert, 35 31–32, 44–46, 60–61, 74, 77–79, 81,
92–96, 160–62, 171, 194, 203,
Dante, x, xi, xiv, 2–7, 10–41, 44–46, 51, 210–12, 218, 222, 226, 236; interior,
61–64, 78, 97, 128, 229–31; the au- 1, 9, 11–13, 60; meditative, 5, 13, 60;
thor, 45; the pilgrim, x, 2, 5–6, 10, 17, narrator's, 162, 171, 194; pilgrim's, 2,
22, 44–46, 51, 61, 62, 230, 231; the 10
poet, 44–46. See Commedia; Inferno; Kennedy, Robert P., 65, 75
Paradiso; Purgatorio Klibanksy, Raymond, 35
divided line, 252–56, 261–64 Klingner, Fritz, 212
Dixon, Sandra Lee, 112 Knauer, G. N., 70
Duclow, Donald F., 243
Durling, Robert M., xiv, 35, 103, 257 ladder, 5, 14, 19–20, 26–28, 131, 214
Dwyer, Richard A., 212 Lamberton, Robert, 57
Lawlor, Robert, 233
Index 283
lectio divinia, 33, 56–57 Paffenroth, Kim, 65, 75

Lerer, Seth, 213, 219, 220, 236 Paradisio, 3, 6, 10–11, 18–19, 21, 24, 30,
Leveque, Pierre, 263 34, 41, 229–330. See Dante
Lewis, C. S., 13 Pascal, Blaise, 1–2
Lonergan, Bernard J. F., 4 Patch, Howard Rollin, 212, 227
Payne, F. Anne, 213
MacCormack, Sabine, 66 Peck, Russell A., 249
Macrobius, 35, 249–50, 253, 256, 263 Pellikan, Jaroslav, 114
Magee, John, 227 Pentecost, 26, 43, 104
Magrassi, Mariano, O.S.B., 33 Pieper, Josef, 13
Male, Emile, 34 pilgrim, 1, 7, 9–11, 22, 24, 34, 44–52,
Mann, William E., 113 60–62, 77–80, 160–61
Martinez, Ronald L., 35, 257 Planinc, Zdravko, 262
McGill, Arthur, 165 Plato, 35, 80, 95, 150, 254, 262–63. See
McInerny, Ralph M., 14 Meno; Republic; Timaeus
McMahon, Robert, 65, 70, 98, 103, 120 prayer, x, xiv, 31–33, 46, 48, 50–51, 56,
meditation, vii–viii, 3–5, 8, 11–13, 64–65, 73–76, 79–114, 119, 128–29,
21–22, 28, 30–32, 42–43, 57, 60, 65, 133, 145–47, 155, 158, 161–67,
74, 111–12, 115, 118–22, 126–33, 170–73, 177–87, 190–94, 203–4,
138–41, 148, 156, 195–96, 202, 208, 212, 221, 225, 234, 245, 246,
208–9, 227, 248, 264. See ascent, 252
meditative; journey, meditative Proslogion, vii, x, xii–xiii, 27–28, 31, 36,
meditative philosophy, vii, 34, 42, 44, 44–51, 55, 59, 61, 87, 127, 147,
65, 264; Augustine's, 65, 109–11 159–244, 250–52, 259–61, 264–66.
Meno, 29. See Plato See Anselm
Michie, Donald, 58 Purgatorio, 3–4, 10, 17, 19, 30, 35; love
Miller, James, 40 in, 4. See Dante
Mourant, John A., 143
moving viewpoint, xi, 4–5, 110–13, 118, Quinn, John M., O.S.A., 70, 148
121, 131, 136, 138, 143, 155
Rand, Edward Kennard, 213
narrator. See Anselm, the narrator; as- reconfigured understandings, 30,
cent, narrator's; Augustine, the narra- 142–44, 160, 164, 195–96, 210, 229
tor; Boethius, the narrator; Redemption, 19, 26, 38, 43
Dante, the narrator; journey, narra- Reiss, Edmund, 211–12, 213, 236, 249
tor's Republic, 35, 254–56, 262, 263. See Pla-
numerologies, 34–43, 61, 77, 147, to
172–74, 197, 214, 223, 233, 249–66 Resurrection, 10, 23, 38, 61, 78, 121,
169, 173
Oakeshott, Michael, 29 return to the origin, 6, 8, 13, 60, 65–71,
O'Daly, Gerard, 213, 265 74–77, 84, 90–108, 195
O'Donnell, James J., 59, 64 Rhoads, David, 58
Olney, James, xiv, 46, 276 Rogers, Katherin A., 70, 148
Olson, Paul A., xiv, 78, 212
O'Meara, John J., 45, 54, 100 Scarry, Elaine, 215, 222–23, 249
Oroz–Reta, Jose, 79 Schufreider, Gregory, xiv, 27–28, 163,
Ovid, 120, 163 165, 168, 189, 204, 206
284 Index
Schumacher, E. F., 13 Trinity, 2, 18–19, 26–27, 34, 52, 67,

Singleton, Charles S., 35, 44 81–82, 98–99, 112, 152, 169–72,
Socrates, 29, 80, 118, 184, 256 176–77, 181–91, 197–98, 203, 208–9
Solignac, A., 79, 101 typology, 24, 55
Southern, R. W., 59, 206
Spengemann, William C., 46 Vance, Eugene, 55
sprirtual exercises, xii–xiii, 32–33, Van Fleteren, Frederick, 65, 66, 170
57–63, 207–9 Viola, Coloman, 170
Starnes, Colin, 64 Virgil, 2, 4, 17–21, 61, 163
Stephany, William A., 75–76, 137 Voegelin, Eric, 165
Stock, Brian, 65 von Balthasar, Hans Urs, 43
Stolz, Anselm, 165, 180, 182, 207
Waddell, Paul J., C.P., 125
Teske, Roland J., S.J., 70, 148 Weintraub, Karl Joachim, 46
Timaeus, 35, 28–41, 148, 150, 231, 250, Wiltshire, Susan, 241
253, 256, 262. See Plato Wood, Chauncey, 41
Trankle, Hermann, 265
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UNDERSTANDING THE

Augustine, Anselm, Boethius, & Dante

The Catholic University of America Press

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

1. The Meditative Ascent: Paradigm and Principles

2. The Unity of Meditative Structure and Texture

3. A Moving Viewpoint: Augustine’s Meditative Philosophy

4. Meditative Movement in Anselm’s Proslogion 159

5. Recollecting Oneself: Meditative Movement

T H E W O R K S treated in these pages—Augustine’s Confessions,

thor’s designs upon the reader. The meanings engendered by the

on memory. Books 1–9 display Augustine’s memory in act. They

Second, each of these works proves to be a journey. This journey

Consolation of Philosophy, in a somewhat different way, meditates on

goal is a vision of Unity. The convergence of its various strands is

experienced in meditation. For another, it is not clear to me that

Confessions, unfolds as a prayer from beginning to end. This literary

THE MEDITATIVE ASCENT

Paradigm and Principles

T H E M E D I T A T I V E A S C E N T enacts an interior journey: the re-

1. Blaise Pascal, Pensees, translated by A. J. Krailsheimer, number 929, p. 320;

A meditative ascent, then, unfolds in stages, and each stage rep-

3. I take the formulations in this paragraph from Bernard Lonergan, Insight:

Ascent and Return

Adam. Beatrice’s discourse is further surpassed, in brevity and com-

ories because it is their ground. “Ground” is an image of founda-

series of principles steadily higher and prior: more fundamental,

The Interior Journey: Human Being as

6. Augustine, Of True Religion, Introduction by Louis O. Mink, translated by J.

ble evidence of the invisible God can be found in the beauties of

3.6.11).7 Interior intimo meo may be freely rendered as “more in-

to this tradition, we are the only reflective, discursive intelligences in

The Hierarchy of Being and Analogy

8. For fuller treatments, see C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction

dition offers two useful models: a philosophical one, “the analogy

explicitly developed in the thirteenth century by Thomas Aquinas, it

ally” or analogously. The beings at higher levels in the Scale of Being

it is easy to forget that she is being punished for adulterous lust.

thinkers did not believe in God’s creation of the world. At most,

makes Virgil’s discourse on love more fully coherent. Moreover, Vir-

cast aside after using it to climb to a new understanding. Virgil’s dis-

ogous to the transformation of the pilgrim. In the course of Dante

Foreshadowing and Fulfillment

those in the New Testament. Abraham, Moses, David, and Solomon

ment. Odysseus’s overcoming of the Cyclops foreshadows his con-

12. See Leo C. Ferrari, “The Arboreal Polarization in Augustine’s Confessions,”

and Francesca, figured in the whirlwind that torments them, fore-

present in each Person,” or whether both are true in some mysteri-

thought, the meditation has advanced to a higher understanding of

though I have profited from consulting those by Schufreider, Deane, and

Book 8. Without the book titles and chapter headings provided in

The Meditative Ascent and Philosophical Content

14. See the Meno 97d–98b.

trinal, insofar as it teaches us something, but the doctrine is never fi-

Confessions comes in Book 13. This exposition implicitly reconfig-

demands more than mere reading. It is constructed so as to lead us

transform a person’s consciousness by dwelling interiorly on a

point a reader may be sparked by grace into awareness of the Divine

diating patterns of “seven” from the center of the central canto in

dered [disposuisti] all things in measure and number and weight”

A chiastic pattern can also occur in a structure longer than the

A 1:1–5 The Word with God “in the beginning”