Music and continence in St. Augustin’s (354-430) Confessions
Luiz Cláudio Luciano França GONÇALVES
Original title: Música e continência em Confissões, de Santo Agostinho (354-430)
Published in Rhythms, expressions and representations of the body
Keywords: Confessions, Continence, Sacred Song, Saint Augustine.
The experience of singing in the church of Bishop Ambrose in Milan prompted Augustine to reflect not only on the beautiful specific musical practice he had witnessed, but also on the moral component associated with it. Later, such impressions were reported in Confessions (Confessiones, 397-401). At the time, Augustine expressed concern for the “pleasures of the ear” (voluptates aurium), which, although they could be employed in the sense of spiritual elevation, occasionally provoked unruly emotions and thus harmful to equilibrium and soul unity. Reflecting on the merit of avoiding the soul dispersion by the tempting musical beauty and expanding his meditation to the domain of bodily pleasures in general, Augustine highlights, in this scenario, the continence (continentia) – essential part of the Christian moral virtue of temperance (temperantia) –, whose intervention can reorder emotions.
Saint Augustine and the definition of Music as Scientia (De Musica I, IV, 5)
Luís Carlos Silva de SOUSA
Original title: Santo Agostinho (354-430) e a definição de Música como Scientia (De Musica I, IV, 5)
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: Modulation, Music, Order, Reason, Saint Augustine, Scientia, Transcendence.
The objective of this work is to analyse the use of the term Scientia in the definition of Music proposed by Saint Augustine in the work De Musica (I, IV, 5). The Music, one of the seven Liberal Arts, was understood by Augustine as a manifestation of th order of audible realities. The Music had as its object not exactly modulatio, but bona modulatio. Many animals are capable of modulation, they fellow numerical laws: but, for Saint Augustine, the Music was a Scientia bene modulandi, and it assumed a specific, transcendent telos (τέλος). The term Scientia could not be dispensed with, since ignorance of the bona modulatio, as an exercise of Reason, could cause disorder in the use of song.
Saint Augustine: Faith, Hope and Charity
Emerson DETONI
Original title: Santo Agostinho: Fé, Esperança e Caridade
Published in The Time and the Eternity in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Faith, God, Saint Augustine, Virtue.
Before the God’s revelation, that proposes his salvation project, the human being is invited to answer through faith, hope and charity. Believing, waiting and loving the man place himself into the dynamic of the existence towards to God. More than a set of contents, it is a life path, a disposition, a capability and availability of complying every day “acts of faith”, to place oneself in the God’s Hands with full confidence, hoping from Him the fullness of property and the eternal life. Saint Augustine has deepened the interiority of the faith decision, his connection with the hope and the charity. Everything with a strong suffering towards Christ.
The just war in St. Thomas de Aquinas and its reflections in History
Gilberto Callado de OLIVEIRA
Original title: A guerra justa em Santo Tomás de Aquino e seus reflexos na História
Published in War and Disease in Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Keywords: Crusades, Just war, Lawfulness of war, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas.
In the face of current offensive and preventive wars, based on ideological and economic values, Thomist philosophy and theology are very important, not only in considering the fundamentals of just war, but also applying the theory of private wars as a possible key to giving origin of a new international order. Augustine of Hippo was certainly the creator of the doctrine of just defensive war based on Christian principles, but, taken up by Aquinas, it acquired the idea of an offensive holy war, which involves the protection of justice and the honour of God.
Time and Eternity in Saint Augustine
Marcos Roberto Nunes COSTA
Original title: Tempo e Eternidade em Santo Agostinho
Published in The Time and the Eternity in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Eternity, Manichaeism, Neoplatonism, Saint Augustine, Time.
Every Augustinian disputation regarding to time - eternity relation arises from the need of combating the Manicheans and, by indirection, all those ones that affirmed, asserted world eternity, that denied ex nihilo Jewish - Christian Creation principle. Saint Augustine, departing from Genesis Scriptural Book in order to present a revelational founding and neoplatonic philosophy, in order to impart philosophic maintenance to the above - mentioned thesis, has ended up by moving away from not only Manichaeism, but from Neo-Platonism itself which has worked as philosophical foundation for contesting those ones.
