Augustine and the boy by the sea
The legend of Augustine and the boy by the sea is a well-known tale from the life of St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430). It is only documented in writing from the 14th century. It was already recognized as unhistorical by the Bollandists of the 18th century. However, its power as a parabola has proven itself to this day.
origin
According to Roland Kany , the episode was similarly told about other theologians before it was exclusively linked to Augustine. According to Kany, this connection was created by the Augustinian canon Thomas von Cantimpré around 1260. The narrative can first be found in full form in the Catalogus Sanctorum of Bishop Petrus de Natalibus around 1370. After that, it became an integral part of Augustine's biographies . The place and time of the event became the subject of the rivalry between Augustinian canons and Augustinian hermits . While some localized the event in Centumcellae ( Civitavecchia ) and dated it to the time between Augustine's conversion and his return to Africa (388), others relocated it to the beach of Hippo Regius and to the time of the actual writing of the book about the Trinity (after 400).
Text around 1370
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Latin original |
translation |
| Fertur de eo, quod quum librum de Trinitate compilare cogitasset, transiens juxta litus, vidit puerum, qui foveam parvam in litore fecerat, et cochlea aquam de mari haustam in foveam mittebat. Et quum Augustinus puerum interrogasset, quid faceret: respondit puer, quod mare disposuerat cochlea exsiccare, et in foveam illam mittere. Quumque hoc Augustinus impossibile esse diceret, et simplicitatem pueri rideret: puer seine ei dixit, quod possibilius sibi esset hoc perficere, quam Augustino minimam partem mysteriorum Trinitatis in libro suo explicare, assimilans foveam codici, mare Trinitati intuit, cochuer intellect . Augustinus autem ex hoc se humiliavit, et librum de Trinitate, oratione præmissa, utquumque potuit, compilavit. | He is said to have been walking along a beach at the time he was preparing the book on the Trinity. Then he saw a boy who had made a small pit in the sand and was scooping water from the sea with a spoon and pouring it into the pit. When Augustine asked him what he was doing, the boy replied that he was planning to drain the sea with a spoon and pour it into the pit. Augustine declared that it was impossible and smiled at the boy's simplicity. But he replied that it would be easier for him to accomplish this than for Augustine to explain even the smallest part of the mysteries of the Trinity in his book. And he compared the pit with the book, the sea with the Trinity, and the spoon with the mind of Augustine. Then he disappeared. Then Augustine went to himself, prayed and then wrote the book on the Trinity as best he could. |
Interpretation aspects
In the theological discourse, the parable illustrates the absolute transcendence of God towards reason and the word of man and warns against the conceptual limitation of his mystery . Opposed to this is a position that understands human reason as a creature mirror of the uncreated Logos .
In general language and epistemology , it is a picture of skepticism about any real relationship between subjective knowledge and objective being.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Augustins Trinitarian Thinking, Tübingen 2007, pp. 306-310
- ↑ Agostino incontra un bambino sulla spiaggia , Associatione Storico-Culturale S. Agostino (Italian)
- ^ Text after Acta Sanctorum Augusti , tomus VI, Antwerp 1743, pp. 357–358
- ↑ Maybe a shell is meant. Cochlea is actually "snail", derived from cochlear for "spoon".