And would to God we didn't have them: Augustine, Icons, and Popular Practice

The following is quotes and commentary from a sermon from Augustine (Sermon 198). In it you'll see a classic clash between pastor and congregation over the issues of improper worship, pagan criticism, and proper doctrine. The reason Augustine hones in on this topic is because there was a real problem in 5th c. Hippo. This sermon is particularly long because Augustine is trying to drag it out. It was New Years and Augustine expected members of his congregation to join in the revelries. A mix of African/Roman pagan customs with a gloss of Christian significance, Augustine feared stumbling to a variety of sins (drunkenness, lust/fornication, gluttony, wasting time/resources on trivial indulgences). And it's this context that informs Augustine's larger sweep of comparing the religion of Christ to Roman paganism(s). He is trying to impress upon his readers the difference between them and their neighbors. But the subtext is clear: his people are stumbling into these errors and he seeks to correct them.

Here, before we continue, we have to note a question of methodology. I think it's easy enough to claim that Augustine is referring to real things (especially because he makes specific references a few times). However the problem is how to interpret this relationship. Some scholars (mostly liberals with faux-tolerant values) may opt to describe the power difference. Here the pastor, the legal authority, struggles against the native instincts of the people. It's a fundamentally hostile relationship between two churches, one of the elite rulers and one of the ruled masses. This read goes too far in dichotomizing what was, in practice, a functioning whole. Augustine's laity were not only the oppressed masses, but elites far wealthier and more powerful than the bishop. But what does this antagonism mean? Here, there is Augustine the philosopher-bishop (and later revered doctor/saint of the church) struggling against the popular (but not exclusive elite laity) practice of iconic veneration.

 However one cuts it, this problem depends upon what constitutes "authority". If you believe the institution of the church never errs, then you must build upon this circular foundation. Of course at this juncture you're forced towards a number of positions that have their own difficulties. Roman Catholics have, overwhelming, melded ultramontanism and Newmanite evolutionism to explain the changes (which they acknowledge). For some conciliar fundamentalists, your only option is to hang everything on specific extraordinary councils that speak as "the church", though how one knows these is somewhat vague. Another option is some kind of receptionism, appealing to the longue duree of church history among the people of God. Thus the church cannot really fall into any long term error, but this concept begs the question of what "long" is. Clearly from Israel's history one sees centuries long lapses into error, though one might say this no longer applies to the church which has the Spirit of God given. A lot of the above is a system built on various axioms that are not self-evident, and it's not really anymore superior to varied Protestant accounts of authority, interpretation, and history.

Anyway, here we are with Augustine. The first quote involves the question of what we might, anachronistically, term iconodulia:

"We had started to deal with the apparently better educated pagans [...] since they say to us, 'You people also have your adorers of columns, and sometimes even of pictures.' And would to God that we didn't have them, and may the Lord grant that we don't go on having them! But all the same, this is not what the Church teaches you." ( Augustine, Sermon 198, 16)

 One might say "he says 'adore', so he's not talking about veneration!", but this is a red herring. There was no technical terminology and Augustine is clearly referring to Christians adoring Christian objects (the columns are most likely the columns of the church). The opinion of Augustine is pretty straightforward: this practice is bad and that's not the tradition of the church.

The next quote involves something like invocation of the saints. There are a million subtleties when it comes to this concept and, in modern times, apologists have taken a pretty soft tact. Stringing together various biblical quotes and doctrines, invocation is considered no different than asking a fellow Christian for prayer. In fact it's better than that, as you're asking a decidedly righteous man for prayer (something st. James says is particularly effective). But this presumes much and, more importantly, fails to grapple with reality. By that I mean: what do most actual people do in these contexts? Augustine sounds the warning bell against what appears to be a lapse into paganism, rejecting the practice in general, with a minor qualification. Here he is:

" 'And so you mustn't let them seduce you, when they say to you, "If you people worship the martyrs, and assume that through them you are being assisted in God's presence, how much more in the right are we to worship the powers of God, to be assisted through them in God's presence.'

I mean, just pay attention to the Church's sacraments, and see if sacrifice is offered to any of the martyrs, with us presenting one sacrifice to this martyr, another to that one. On the contrary, at all their memorial shrines we offer the one sacrifice, and not to any of them either, but to the Lord of us all; and in this sacrifice we also honor the martyrs according to their status, not in themselves but in the one through whom they defeated the devil. And they are mindful of us all the more lovingly, the less we are inclined to perform for them private personal rites, because they find their honor in him alone, in whom they find their joy. If anybody says to you, 'Invoke the angel Gabriel in this way, invoke Michael in that; offer the former this little ritual, the latter this other'; don't be taken in, don't consent. And don't let him mislead you just because the names of these angels can be read in the scriptures; observe rather in what role they are to be read there, whether they ever demanded from men any kind of personal religious veneration for themselves, and did not always wish glory to be given to the one God, whom they obey" (Augustine, Sermon 198, 47)

Augustine is clearly trying to distinguish between honoring the saints/martyrs and invoking them as an aid. What Augustine says is not unlike the honor given to the saints in the Te Deum, which is published in the Book of Common Prayer:

We praise thee, O God : we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.
All the earth doth worship thee : the Father everlasting.
To thee all Angels cry aloud : the Heavens, and all the Powers therein.
To thee Cherubim and Seraphim : continually do cry,
Holy, Holy, Holy : Lord God of Sabaoth;
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty : of thy glory.
The glorious company of the Apostles : praise thee.
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets : praise thee.
The noble army of Martyrs : praise thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world : doth acknowledge thee;

Most contemporary Protestants have failed to sufficiently honor departed heroes of the faith, whether apostles, saints, or martyrs. They have also, generally until recently, failed to recognize a robust and spooky world of spirits all around us. But all of this does not lead to invocation which, as Augustine attacks, is not the same thing. One is not far from his criticism when you look as private devotional novenas among Roman Catholics.

The final quote, also about intercession, is a clear attack against what is quite common. Here Augustine rejects saintly patronage or the intercessory power of the priesthood:

"So did this John, then, ever say, "And if anyone does sin you have me with the Father; I am praying for you"? Just notice who said what. Not only, I mean, did he not say that, but even if he had said, And if anyone does sin you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Just One; he it is who is the propitiation for your sins, he would have seemed somewhat proud and arrogant. He didn't say that. And if he didn't say that, what colossal pride it would have been for him to say, "You have me as an advocate with the Father"! What even more monstrous sacrilege it would have been for him to say, "You have me as a mediator with the Father," wishing in this way to place himself between sinners and God!

And that is what these people are neither afraid nor ashamed to say, that the bishop is a mediator between God and men. ( Augustine, Sermon 198, 55)

Again, high-octane theological scholastics will guffaw. Of course these practices aren't sanctioned by the hierarchy! But look at common practice Italy, where Padre Pio beats out Jesus and Mary as figure prayed to. Pastors lament ignorance and the victory of "popular religion", but how does one correct this problem? What's the difference? Why does one ever need to pray to God if you've always got far more righteous, and well-connected, saints praying for you? The problems breed themselves.