J. Warren Smith: Augustine and the Problem of the Magnanimous Man

This paper examines Augustine's critique of the philosophical ideal of the "magnanimous man". In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle defines the magnanimous or great-souled man (megalopsychos) as the mean between the extremes of the small-souled individual who does not aspire to honor and of the vain individual who claims more honors than he merits. In the centuries that followed, magnanimity became associated with the panicle of virtue by Stoics, Middle Platonists and even Christian bishops, such as Ambrose. In Jennifer Herdt's Putting on the Virtues, she argues that Augustine rejects the ideal of the magnanimous man as a suitable model for the Christian life because Aristotle's magnanimous individual aspires to moral and material self-sufficiency. For Augustine, such a person denies her creaturely dependence upon God and other members of the Christian community. This paper, which is related to research for a monograph on the early Christian critique and adaptation of magnanimatas, will argue that, while Herdt's analysis is basically right, Augustine's use of magnanimatas reflects a more ambivalent attitude toward Classical and Hellenistic virtue theory than Herdt recognizes.  Indeed, Augustine attributes magnanimatas to heretics (Enarr. in Ps. CXXIV) and is critical of suicides who aspire to magnanimity (De civ. Dei I,18 ff.). Elsewhere, however, magnanimatas is a positive quality of Israel's patriarchs (C. Faust. XXII.25-26).  Given the time allowed for this short presentation, I propose to focus on Augustine's curious description in Confessions (I,9) of those who disciplined him as being magni animi. This passage is intriguing primarily for two reasons. First, it is unclear whether Augustine is using magnus animus in an ironic, pejorative sense or as true praise. Second, it reveals Augustine's views of the relation between suffering and compassion and what it means to administer punishment justly. His use of magnus animus here may reflect indebtedness to the Hellenistic ideal of magnanimatas as well reflect his Christianization of this virtue.