Augustinus (Pseudo-)

Augustinus (Pseudo-) (fl. mid 7th cent.) was author of the tract ‘De mirabilibus sacrae [or ‘sanctae’] scripturae’, internally datable to 655. It deals in an unusually rationalistic fashion – for the medieval period – with the ‘wonders’ or miracles related in Scripture. The first and longest book deals with the Pentateuch; the second, with what the author calls ‘prophecy’, chiefly the historical books of the Bible; and the third, now incomplete, with the New Testament. The author displays a remarkably enquiring cast of mind, concentrating on the literal and historical senses of Scripture, in his endeavour to explain the apparent breaches of natural law involved in the accounts of biblical events. God, having once created all things spiritual and material, imbued creation with the force of His divine power, which reaches into the inner nature of things and manifests itself as natural law. Therefore, no natural phenomenon, however extraordinary, involved any new creation: God continued to govern creation through His angels but did intervene on occasion. Being interested in all kinds of natural phenomena, the author frequently digresses to discuss them as an observer. Though much of his discussion is based on an imperfect knowledge of classical sources (e.g. Pliny) and on his own observations and a certain amount of imagination, the whole work suggests considerable intellectual curiosity and a degree of judgement that is quite exceptional for the early medieval period.

The text evidently enjoyed some popularity, since there are over seventy manuscripts of the long recension. The author belonged to the Romani party and used the Paschal cycle of Victorius of Aquitaine. His explanation of the sun and moon standing still at the command of Joshua (Josh. 10: 12–13) includes a dating clause stating that he was writing in the third year of the twelfth 532-year cycle since the creation of the world, which dates the text quite precisely to 655; this passage is also quoted in an eighth-century Irish computus (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibl., Clm 14456 (Regensburg)). The Irish provenance of the text is known from internal references to the death (652) of Manchán of Min Droichit (Manchán (qv) of Liath Mancháin) and other Irish savants, and from references to Irish fauna and tidal data. The latter would indicate that he was writing in a monastery in the south-west. He styles himself Augustinus in his dedication (I, 4), which he addresses to ‘the venerable bishops and priests of the cities and monasteries, most especially of the Carthaginenses’. The final phrase has recently been interpreted as referring not to ‘the city of Carthach’ (qv), that is Lismore, but to Inis Cathaig (Scattery Island), the foundation of St Senan (qv) in the Shannon estuary, taking Carthaginenses to be a corruption of Cathagenses. He states that he was commissioned to write the ‘De mirabilibus’ by his spiritual mentor Eusebius, who has not been identified with any certainty. The work, along with that of the author of the seventh-century ‘De ordine creaturarum’, gives us a rare insight into the cosmological understanding of a medieval Irish savant.