Appendix II
Supplements from the Notes of Oskar Becker
1. Continentia
[Supplement to § 12 a]
“Jubes continentiam” [you command continence]—the iubere [commanding] is a directio cordis [direction of the heart]. Cf. Enarrationes in Psalmos [On the Psalms] 7, V. 10: iubere is not oriented in the Church, in objective faith.
“Quomodo ergo justus dirigi potest, nisi in occulto.” [For how can the just man be directed except in secret.]1 Through events at the beginning of the Christian age, the effectivity of God could indeed once be experienced objectively as a miracle. But now, when the name of Christians has grown to such heights, the hypocrisis—the hypocrisy of those who want to please people rather than God—grows as well. How else can the just one be led out of such confusio simulationis [confusion of simulation], if not by God’s testing him in the heart and gut (Cor, heart = inner consideration; ren, gut = delectatio in malam partem [delight in the bad parts]. The delectatio is something base in life; that is why it is designated by a baser, lower organ.) Augustine now elaborates, in what this scrutinium [scrutiny] is enacted.—“Finis enim curae delectatio est” [For the end of concern is delight]:2 For everyone strives in his concern and consideration for what is attainable by his own delectatio, but God himself speaks in our conscience, and he sees our concern and our goal; that which we are doing through actions and words may be known to a human being, “sed quo animo fiant” [but what we do in the soul],3 and what we thus aim at, God alone knows.
Iubes continentiam is to be understood in this sense.
2. Uti and frui
[Supplement to § 12 b]
The curare (the being-concerned) is a basic characteristic of life, it is meant as vox media in bonam et in malam partem [the middle voice between the
1. Enarrationes in Psalmos VII 9 (V. 10); PL 36, p. 103.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., p. 104.