Eyes fixed on the same thing
How does anyone know that he has received the Holy Spirit? Let him question his own heart: if he loves his brother, then God’s Spirit remains in him. Let him see; let him prove himself before the eyes of God; let him see if he has love for peace and unity, love for the Church spread throughout the world. Let him not consider only love of the brother or sister he sees before him; there are many others whom we do not see but to whom we are joined in the unity of the Spirit…. We are in one body; we have one head in heaven. Our eyes don’t see each other; it’s as if they don’t know each other. But in the charity of the body’s frame do they not know each other? When they’re both open, the right eye doesn’t look at something that the left eye doesn’t see. Send a glance from your right eye without the left, if you can. They both go out together, are directed the same way; their aim is one though their places are distinct. If, then, all who with you love God and have the same intention as you, don’t focus on your physical separation. The eyesight of your hearts you have fixed on the light of truth. If you wish to know, therefore, that you have received the Spirit, ask your heart whether perhaps you have the sacrament but not do not have the power of the sacrament. Ask your heart, and if love of a brother is there, rest secure. There cannot be love without God’s Spirit, because Paul cries out: “The love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Augustine on I John, Hom. 6, 11; PL 35, 2025-2026)
This text could serve as a platform for that theologicall epistemology the Church is in dire need of. Interesting that he thinks that truth is reached by many (two eyes) working together.
Does “heart” here mean “mind”? Or some combination of mind and will? Or what?
Maritain departed from Aquinas in thinking that in the depths of our soul there is one “root capability:” or faculty that can grasp the truth, goodness, unity and beauty of a thing by one act, in one aesthetic experience.. I wonder if he got the bas8c notion from St. Augustine. (Or maybe — gasp — Scotus.)
Eyes “know” or do not know each other, hearts have a “palate”, hands are “confounded”, shoulders are “devout”… If Augustine was a painter, would his art resemble that of Picasso?
http://www.abcgallery.com/P/picasso/picasso130.html
I find Augustine’s images like those rather obnoxious sometimes. The worst is “the ears of the heart”. Huh?
Ann: Sometimes I think that your inner ears (the ears of your heart) are deaf to metaphor. One of my brothers-in-law developed the skill of tuning out his crew of noisy children, which would at times infuriate my sister who would say to him: “Are you deaf?!” She wasn’t referring to his physical hearing, but to the ears of his heart. Augustine said that to be able to receive Christ as the Bread of Life, one had to have a hunger in the heart. He was one of the originators of the tradition that our hearts have five senses, too, which permitted him and medieval heirs to explore wonderful metaphors of the Christian life.
Ann: Sometimes I think that your inner ears (the ears of your heart) are deaf to metaphor.
Not the best taste remark given that Ann is deaf (in the physical sense of the word).
You’re right, Claire, and my apologies to Ann for my forgetfulness.
JAK –
You’re forgiven:-) But I’m really not as sensitive about it as most deaf people, no doubt because I grew up with deaf people on all sides of my family, so being deaf didn’l set me apart, as so often happens when you’re the only deaf one around. I grew up expecting to say “What? What?” a lot in my old age, so it came as no surprise, and I had some good example about how to cope. Most deaf folks aren’t so lucky.
JAK –
I think that the images projected by metaphors are part of their force, and the images can make or break a metaphors success. I always thing that Carl Sandburg’s Fog is the perfect metaphor because of the image:
THE fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Those ears stuck to a heart are just yuky to me. Kind of like leeches.
Start with observable reality. The eye argument is wrong. Because their “places are distinct” in the body, the two eyes never see the same view. Augustine could have noticed this by covering one eye at a time while looking carefully. A better metaphor might have to do with there always being more than one way to look at things.
Perhaps I should have explained that Augustine shared the view that sight was achieved by rays emitted from the eyes that then returned with the image of the thing seen. He’d have been correct if that view had been correct: both eyes sending out the rays.
Ann: I never imagined ears on the heart and can’t quite figure why you’re such a literalist. If one speaks of the “hunger of the heart,” do you imagine a stomach inside it?
My own difficulty is different, numerical, so to speak: the phrase “Let him not consider only love of the brother or sister he sees before him; there are many others whom we do not see but to whom we are joined in the unity of the Spirit” evokes a multitude of people for me; but in each person, there are only two eyes that are “directed in the same way”, not a multitude of eyes.
But in those short texts there have been analogies that I thought were contrived the first time I heard of them, but that seemed quite natural the second time they came up, so I am not really arguing against this excerpt.
As to those “rays”… have you ever heard of “ray-tracing”? It’s a technique used in computer graphics to draw a scene. In order to know which objects are visible from the eye/camera, you shoot rays out of the eye and trace its path to obstacles (including reflections, refractions, etc.) Maybe I should find an Augustine quote on rays and send it to my colleagues who do graphics!
JAK –
Hunger of the heart –> stomach inside the heart? AWWWKKKK!!!!!
The problem with a short little metaphor is there is often not enough context to force one interpretation rather than another, and, as with all language uses, context is crucial to interpreting metaphors. And all metaphorical uses begin with a literal one. Without the literal meaning no analogical one is possible. Or what does David Tracy say? (It’s been years since I read his book.)
Might it be that the way everyone thought about their senses and innards in Augustine’s day was very different from the common ways of today? Now, the biological basis for the metaphors offers difficulties he wouldn’t recognize.
JAK – Have you considered the possibility that your brother-in-law enjoyed one of life’s minor blessings of transient non-hearing that enables one to make it through another day with a crew of noisy children, again, rather than problems with the ears of his heart? There are two ways to look at that phenomenon.