Jonathan Teubner - Augustine's De Magistro: Scriptural Arguments and the Genre of Philosophy

De magistro has been of particular interest to philosophers of language as of late, as can be seen by Emmanuel Bermon’s Habilitationsschrift, published as La Signification et l’enseignement (J. Vrin, 2007).  As of a result of Bermon’s (and many other commentators’) focus on the philosophy of language, there has not been as much analysis of the argumentative value of Augustine’s quotation of Scripture, particularly Paul’s epistles.  In general, Augustine’s corpus has been victim to an inaccurate, though convenient, bifurcation—in his early career, Augustine was an example of a Stoic-Platonic philosopher, while in his later career, Augustine was a Pauline theologian. This, as Carol Harrison has argued, is a result of ‘grotesque caricatures’ of Peter Brown’s argument for ‘The Lost Future’ of Augustine (Harrison, 2006, 155).  In recent years, however, several general works on Augustine have argued for stronger continuity between his early and late work (e.g. Harrison, 2006; Williams, 2007). Harrison’s work, in particular, has made a forceful argument on behalf of the continuity thesis. She has suggested that there was a development in the use of Paul in Augustine’s post-Cassiciacum works (Harrsion, 2006, 122).  Her argument, however, does not give a sufficient explanation of De magistro, one of Augustine’s most challenging early works. As a part of the reassessment of this critical period (late 380s/early 390s), I propose to analyze the role of Augustine’s citation of Paul in §§38-40, where Augustine offers his thesis of the interiore luce veritatis.  With the exception of the very beginning of the dialogue, §§38-40 contain the most concentrated citations of Scripture.  Moreover, I will look at Augustine’s use of Paul in reference to De Genesi contra Manichaeos and De moribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum, both of which are near contemporaries of De magistro, and are also among Augustine’s earliest attempts to employ Scripture argumentatively. While De magistro is written in the genre of his Cassiciacum dialogues, I want to show that this work also fits within the context of these other early attempts to argue Scripturally. This will, I believe, bring a pivotal dialogue under direct scrutiny that will strengthen the general thesis for continuity that Harrison has put forward, while showing that Augustine's shift in genre was not in itself as significant as it may seem.