Learning about Prayer from an Important Church Father
Traditionally, Sunday is the Christian Sabbath, a day where Christians of all denominations and theological stripes come together as the Body of Christ, to worship God and fellowship with one another. I know my blog is wild at times. I often focus on controversial things that are edgy and thought provoking. It is my intention to start a nationwide podcast called, "The Lee Enochs Show" (The Great American Podcast). I also plan to release to the public a few books I have been working on. The first one entitled, "Crisis in the Southern Baptist Convention," will focus on a massive controversy presently transpiring in America's largest Protestant denomination.
I want my new online radio show to be the most controversial podcast in America and generate a lot of publicity for my Libertarian and small government views. A long time ago, when I was living in Southern California, I had a very popular radio show on KBR and plan to launch this show nation wide in the days ahead. It will be a wild and controversial show that will focus on political, economic and cultural issues facing America. This week on my podcast I want to focus on the continuing issues surrounding Ferguson, NYC, Cleveland, police brutality and give my take on the University of Virginia fraternity scandal.
However, on Sundays, I like to dial it down a notch. I like to take this day to focus on and worship God.
An important aspect of my life pertains to Christian theology and history. I am a big fan of studying church history and the doctrines of the historic Christian faith. One of my favorite authors in Christian history was Augustine of Hippo (354-434 AD).
Augustine on Prayer by Lee Enochs
While some people today might view Augustine
as a theologian that primary dealt with arcane and impenetrable
doctrines such as original sin and predestination, these same individuals may
be surprised to find out that Augustine wrote a considerable amount of material
on prayer and mystical devotion to God. In 412 A.D., Augustine wrote a letter
of correspondence to a widowed Roman noblewoman by the name of Anicia Faltonia
Proba. This letter contains Augustine’s most
comprehensive statement on prayer and postulates two main arguments. The first
line of argumentation Augustine delineates is that before a person can pray
with any degree of devotional authenticity, he or she must achieve a state of
“spiritual desolation” before God irrespective of one’s financial status.
Secondly, Augustine argues that one should
abandon worldly entertainments to achieve the “happy life” or a state of
spiritual bliss. In this blog post, I will argue that Augustine’s two main points
of argumentation in his letter to Anicia Faltonia Proba are congruent with
apostolic teaching and have a direct relationship with apophatic
and cataphatic theology (theologies of negative and positive statements about God).
Why
Augustine Wrote Anicia Faltonia Proba
As bishop of the North African city of Hippo
Regius, located in present day Annaba Algeria,Augustine carried out a prodigious correspondence with a wide variety of people
including members of the Roman aristocracy. One such prominent member of the
upper division of the ancient Roman ruling class that he communicated with
through writing was the wealthy window Anicia Faltonia Proba, the daughter of
the extremely powerful and aristocratic Roman politician and pro-counsel
Quintus Clodius Hermogenianus Olybrius, the son of the renown, a Praefectus Urbi of Rome.
Anicia Faltonia Proba’s grandmother was the famous Christian poet Faltonia
Betitia Proba who wrote the classic Latin work Cento Vergilianus de laudibus Christ.
Anicia Faltonia Proba was the young widow of the extremely wealthy
and powerful Roman politician Sextus Claudius Petronius Probus (358-390 AD) who
was the grandfather of the Roman Emperors Petronius Maximus (396-455 AD)and Anicius
Olybrius (died 472 AD).
Proba wrote Augustine after the
sack of Rome took place at the hand of Alaric I and the Visigoths on August 24,
410. Proba had to flee from Rome with her daughter in-law Anicia Luliana and
granddaughter Demetrias to North Africa. She was a devout Christian who had
already been in contact with such noted church leaders as John Chrysostom, the
arch-bishop of Constantinople when she began her correspondence with Augustine
on the subject of prayer. Augustine commences his letter to Proba by
addressing her as “a Devoted Handmaid of God,” indicating that Augustine
believed Proba to be a devout believer in Jesus Christ from an “illustrious,
noble and wealthy” background, who had sincere and godly questions before the
Lord. Augustine seemed to express a tremendous willingness to answer Proba’s
questions regarding prayer due to her “pious desire.” Augustine said the he
could not “express into words” how greatly he rejoiced upon her request for
Augustine perceived her “great solicitude about this supremely important
matter.”
Augustine argues that there could
be no more important thing for Proba to consider during her widowhood but to,
“continue in supplications night and day.”
Augustine says that she should be “desolate, trust in God and continue in
supplications day and night.”
Augustine communicates to her that prayer should “occupy her heart and claim
first place in it.”
Augustine addresses the question of what sort of things should a person pray
for and how a person should go about offering such a prayer before God.
Augustine postulates the idea that irrespective of how fortuitous one’s
materialistic circumstances may be, this affluence cannot achieve lasting peace
and happiness outside devout commitment to Jesus Christ. Similarly, Augustine
argues in his writing, On the Trinity,
“Those moved by the reminder to convert again to the Lord from the state of
deformity wherein worldly desires conformed them to this world have received
from the Lord their reformation.”
To Augustine, true spirituality is achieved partly through an abandonment of
this world’s material possessions as seen in the following section of spiritual
“desolation.”
Augustine
on Spiritual Desolation
In his letter to Proba, Augustine
argues that a person must aspire for a form of ecstatic spiritual “desolation”
or a complete emptying of one’s personal desires and says that she should be
“desolate, trust in God and continue in supplications day and night.” Augustine
communicates to her that prayer should “occupy her heart and claim first place
in it.”
Augustine addresses the question of what sort of things should a person pray
for and how a person should go about offering such a prayer before God.
Augustine postulates the idea that irrespective of how fortuitous one’s
materialistic circumstances may be, this affluence cannot achieve lasting peace
and happiness outside devout commitment to Jesus Christ. Augustine argues that
for Proba to have lasting spiritual contentment she must renounce her material
and physical desires and desire a desolation or abandonment of all earthly
cravings due to their inherent temporality.
Augustine quotes Jesus Christ in
this respect and says that, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of
a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Augustine
communicates to Proba that there can be no lasting fulfillment and contentment
in this world and that unless one achieves a spiritual abandonment or
desolation before God, “the life of the soul can have no portion.”Augustine’s view of “spiritual desolation” pertains primary
not only to lack of financial and physical prosperity, but also to a
deprivation of soul that comes from the quest for material possessions above
spiritual sustenance. This realization of the futility of seeking earthly
treasures above the eternal and abiding spiritual treasures that union with God
alone can provide is ultimately a by-product of Augustine’s monergistic view of
justification. That is, in diametrical opposition to a synergistic combination
of human effort and divine aid as believed by his nemesis and theological
opponent Pelagius, Augustine believed that all human beings are utterly
depraved and enslaved to themselves and the vain things of this world until
they experience saving and divine grace.
Augustine
instructs Proba not to have the “the devout anxiety which makes it necessary to
ask my counsel” and bemoan the fact that she lost her substantial fortune after
Rome was sacked by the Visigoth’s in 410 AD. Augustine implies that
poverty is in all actuality a far better physical condition than prosperity
since it is, according to Augustine, exceedingly difficult for a wealthy person
to enter the kingdom of God. Augustine
writes, “Wherefore when they were grieved, not for themselves, but for the
whole human family, and were despairing of the salvation, for it is easier for
a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom
of God. (Matthew 19:21-26).
Augustine
argues that in the case of Proba’s wealthy family members and Roman compatriots
that he caused them to be poor in a temporal and physical sense in order to
make them wealthy spiritually. Augustine says that God, “Made them more truly
rich by extinguishing their desire for riches through imparting to them the
Holy Spirit.”
Furthermore, Augustine asks Proba, “For how could you trust in Him if you were
fixing your trust in uncertain riches?” Thus, in Augustine’s
theological perspective, physical poverty is better than monetary riches since
wealth often clouds one’s spiritual and eternal outlook. However, in
diametrical counter distinction to physical wealth and worldly acquisition, physical
poverty causes a sort of mystical union and devotional state that physical
wealth could never bring.
Augustine
on the Happy Life
Similarly, Augustine argues
that in order to achieve a “true” and “happy” life, one needs to “account
yourself desolate in this world, however great the prosperity of your lot may
be.”Augustine ultimately argues that this “happy life” does not come through
earthly consolation. Augustine says that true felicity and happiness only
exists without our union with God and eternal values.Augustine argues that this “happy life” is ultimately and epistemologically the
only “true life.” This life of sacred desolation and abandonment of this world
riches alone can achieve devotional consolation before God. Augustine argues
that the word and its riches are “darkness,” but God calls us to the light. He
says, “In the darkness of this world, then in which pilgrims absent from the
Lord as long as we walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:6-7), the
Christian soul ought to feel itself desolate and continue in prayer and learn
to fix the eye of faith on the word of the divine sacred Scriptures.”
Furthermore, Augustine argues
that this “happy life,” or state of blissful union in the presence and purposes
of God comes the light of divine revelation. Augustine writes, “For the
ineffable source from which this lamp borrows its light is the Light which
shines in darkness, but the darkness comprehends it not. The Light, in order to
seeing, which our hearts must be purified by faith, for blessed are the pure in
heart.”
Augustine, in attempting to console Proba in her abject poverty and utter loss
of material possessions, argues that the “happy life” is the think that must be
sought above all earthy pursuits. Augustine says, “My aim has been for you
feel, even while your family is spared you, and you can live as you would
desire, you are desolate so long as you have not attained to that life in which
is the true and abiding consolation.”
Congruency with Apostolic Teaching
Augustine believed, as did the New Testament apostles
Paul and James, that material wealth often eviscerates a person’s passion to
have a strong devotional life with God. Paul said, “For the love of money is
the root of all sorts of evil, it is for this craving that many have wandered
away from the faith and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (1
Timothy 6:10). Similarly, Paul said, that the rich should not place their
confidence on uncertain riches but on God who, “provides everything richly that
we might enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17-18). The Apostle James was even more vehement
in his denunciation of the rich and the abundance of their material possessions
(See James 2:5-7 and 5:1-6).
It is clear from these
passages of Scriptures that the Apostles saw the rich as potential exploiters
and the poor as in a better spiritual position before God. To the apostolic
writers, wealth and material possessions often had the ability to cloud one’s
spiritual discernment and devotion to God, since these items of materialism are
things that are “seen.” However, the Apostle Paul placed a positive emphasis on
the “things that are not seen.” Paul wrote, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the
things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the
things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18). Paul seemed ambivalent at best about the
“riches of this world” and ultimately placed an emphasis on acquiring the
spiritual and non-temporal “riches of Christ” instead. Paul said, “Oh, the depth of
the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments
and how inscrutable his way” (Romans 11:33). Also see; Romans 11:12, Ephesians
2:7, 3:8, and Philippians 4:27 and Colossians 1:27-2:2.
Relationship with Apophatic
and Cataphatic Theologies
In contrasting the benefits of poverty from
the detrimental effects of wealth, Augustine believed
in a sort of apopthatic negation by postulating that a state of wealth
ultimately brings true poverty and a state of physical poverty brings the
desired state of spiritual wealth. To
Augustine, poverty is ultimately good and wealth is generally bad. Similarly,
to Augustine, poverty brings true riches while wealthy brings a tragic state of
spiritual poverty. In Augustine’s thought, physical desolation brings about
spiritual consolation and materialistic indulgence brings about a state of
spiritual desolation. However, in diametrical counter distinction to aphophatic
description of God, Augustine seemed to be more accustomed to speaking about
God in a Cataphatic manner.
That is, Augustine seemed to generally engage in the practice of using positive
terminology about the person and essence of God. Augustine’s use of positive
descriptions about God seem to have historical and ecclesiastical precedence in
the life, ministry and teachings of such noted Catholic theologians as Anselm
of Canterbury
and Gregory Nazianzus. This “cataphatic” or positive description of God was in
diametrical opposition and counter distinction to the theology of negation
employed by Neo-platonic author who went by the name of Dionysius the
Areopagite
and the author of the Cloud of Unknowing
who both encouraged their readers to throw off their preconceived understanding
about God and encounter God through that which is unknown.
Conclusion
In this blog post, I examined a letter
Augustine of Hippo send to the window Anicia Faltonia Proba. This letter contains Augustine’s
comprehensive statement on prayer and discusses Augustine’s conception of
“spiritual desolation.” Augustine argues that one should abandon worldly
entertainments to achieve the “happy life” or spiritual bliss before God. I
argued that Augustine’s views on wealth and poverty are congruent with
apostolic teaching and argued that Augustine’s letter to Proba contained
aspects of both apopthatic negation and cataphatic (positive) description of
God. Augustine of Hippo’s letter to Proba and the theology therein is both
sublime and practical in every respect. Augustine’s letter gave consolation to
a widow who experienced abject despair.
Bibliography
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