Blessed Augustine’s formation and philosophy: an Orthodox perspective.

This third article in a four-part series presents my research findings regarding the doctrine of vision of God in general and the Transfiguration of Christ in particular as given in the writings of Augustine of Hippo (+ 430). In the previous two articles published in recent issues of this journal, I gave account of the Latin-writing authors prior to Augustine and Augustine’s formation and philosophical background, respectively. This present article forms the core part of my work in which I show that Augustine does in fact deny that any true theophany exists at all, but rather that such “vision” as may take place possesses the character of a demonstration consisting of created elements which mediate a divine truth needing to be grasped.

I proceed first in setting forth Augustine’s doctrine of divine vision and then examine his commentary on the Transfiguration of Christ. His doctrine would become the status quo under which subsequent Latin Christian interpreters would be greatly influenced. The fourth article to be published subsequently will take up that concluding element along with a contrast with the Greek Christian dominant view which would become dogmatic for the Orthodox church in the 14th century, the era of the Hesychastic Controversy which yielded what has become Orthodox Christian dogma from those synods which canonized the work of St Gregory (Palamas) the Wonderworker. It was then that the insufficiency of the Augustinian-Latin position was exposed and corrected. To date, the lack of any extended study of the Transfiguration in the Latin-writing tradition leaves incomplete a foundational and indispensable stage of scholarship which necessarily must precede a meaningful discussion of the differences between the Roman Catholic, along with Protestant Christian communities, and the Orthodox-Catholic Church.