Augustine: <I>Confessions</I> Books V–IX

Rome-sacking and barebacking: longing, rhetoric, and revolution in Augustine and queer theory

“…118 As Augustine famously put it, 'our heart is restless until it rests in you.' 119 The longing to die calls upon God, death, or anyone for that matter to rescue the desirer not only from hunger or violence inflicted by oppressors, but from the agony of waiting itself, of being separated from the object of one's desire. 120 This is so whether the object is Augustine's deity or the apparent certainty and kinship that participation in barebacking circles might hope to elicit.…”

“…7 Augustine himself recalls that when he first sought out Bishop Ambrose's sermons in Milan, the young Manichee did so not on account of the bishop's 'subject matter' but in order to acquire Ambrose's 'rhetorical technique,' his power of persuasion. 8 Nevertheless, against his very intentions Augustine finds himself seduced, unable to disentangle Ambrose's oratorical form from the religious content the bishop preached: 'While I opened my heart in noting the eloquence with which he spoke, there also entered no less the truth which he affirmed, though only gradually.' 9 Under Ambrose's care, Augustine learned to employ his own rhetorical aptitude to new (and officially Christian) ends.…”

“…1 Thus for all of his sweeping denunciations of 'the markets of rhetoric' and of the 'frenzied lies' of philosophers in book nine of his Confessions, the ways in which this now properly theological Augustine writes, speaks, and reasons nevertheless remain indebted to his educational background. 2 Augustine was intellectually formed as a rhetor; eloquent words and compelling arguments were his trade. And so, in the same way that Augustine's account of his self-styled 'conversion' to the Christian faith emphasizes incompletion -'the self-portrait of a convalescent' rather than 'the affirmation of a cured man'likewise Augustine's emancipation from classical rhetoric is only partial.…”

“…11 In book nine of his Confessions, Augustine articulates the 'sharp pains of inward grief' and 'overwhelming' sense of loss which he felt at the death of his mother, Monica; in doing so, Augustine engages certain rhetorical tools in order to carve out space for pain, lament, and mourning in the life of the converted Christian. 12 Knowing that Augustine remained very much in command of his rhetorical hand after his conversion in 386, and that he demonstrated again and again his ability to respond to trauma and suffering with pastoral sensitivity, how are we to interpret the tone and theology of Augustine's sermon concerning Alaric's 'sacking of the City of Rome'? 13 On its surface, the discourse lacks the pastoral orientation toward compassion that is so evident in key passages of the Confessions.…”

A theory of temporal telepresence: Reconsidering the digital time collapse

“…Price (1997)), and even a necessity, of the laws of nature, such arguments still remain controversial. For now, we shall therefore interpret information flow backwards in time as accurate prediction or simply as anticipation – what Augustine (1960, Book 11, Chapter 20, Heading 26) calls ‘time present of things future’ . If we can ‘observe’ future events, such as very precise prediction of a mechanical or natural event – the fact that the sun will rise tomorrow may be an example – this counts as a form of presence of the future event in question 8.…”