Saint Augustine is Key to the Difference between Pete Hegseth and Pope Leo
In the aftermath of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's recent Pentagon prayer and Pope Leo XIV's Palm Sunday homily, much of the public commentary has settled into a familiar framework. A conservative official invoked God in the context of war and a supposedly liberal pope rebuked him. The exchange is then cast as a political disagreement, or at most as an instance of religion being deployed on both sides of a geopolitical conflict.
This account is inadequate. What is unfolding is not a political dispute but a theological one, and its terms are ancient, not modern. In order to understand the public dialogue taking place between Hegseth and Leo, we need to turn to St. Augustine.
To begin, it is essential to note that Hegseth's Pentagon prayer, widely circulated in recent days, is not original — either to him or to the chaplain who he claims sent it to him. It is, instead, a compilation, largely made up of verses from the Hebrew Scripture. Its language borrows most heavily, though without attribution, from what are known as the imprecatory Psalms — prayers that call for divine judgment on enemies, sometimes in violent terms.
The imprecatory Psalms are among the most difficult texts in the Bible, which is why they have, for millenia, been interpreted by Christians through a particular theological hermeneutic. From the first century onward, the Christian tradition has not treated them as straightforward calls for vengeance. In the words of Origen of Alexandria (circa 185-circa 253) in First Principles, "By the history of wars, and of the victors, and the vanquished, certain mysteries are indicated to those who are able to test these statements."
In his Expositions on the Psalms, Augustine confronts the imprecatory Psalms and insists that they cannot be read as endorsements of hatred or cruelty toward other human beings for the simple reason that then they would not be from God.
"Trains our hands for battle and our fingers for war" refers, according to Augustine, to the conquering of our enemies by works of mercy and charity. And calls for God to break the enemy's teeth refer not to physical violence, but to the silencing of evil and destructive words
Within the Christian tradition, the Psalms speak in a spiritual register not a literal one. Calls for violence do not refer to military battles or human enemies, but to the enemies inside the human soul: sin, injustice and the disordered loves that deform our will.
When the psalmist calls for destruction, Augustine reads this as the destruction of vice, not of human beings in battle. His exegesis is therefore not a "softening" of the imprecatory Psalms; it represents a robust interpretation that is grounded in Augustine's most fundamental theological claim — that God is love made visible in Christ.
In On Christian Doctrine, Augustine articulates this claim clearly as it applies to Scripture: "Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought."
The question is not whether Scripture contains violent language. It does. The question is whether that language can be invoked to sanctify and celebrate the destruction of human beings. On that point, the Christian tradition, articulated with particular clarity by Augustine, is unequivocal: Any interpretation that does not build up love of God and neighbor is not simply politically misguided. It is blasphemous.
My commentary
Early Christianity interpreted scripture spiritually not literally. They understand that the Old Testament text had a literal (historical) meaning. That individuals and Israel had real enemies and did invoke God against them. However, the Old Testament had to be interpreted in the light of the New Testament. Everything, (especially the psalms) prefigured Christ and had to be interpreted in the light of his life and teaching. In the Eastern Church tradition, the Old Testament is always read in a darkened church, just as we do at the Easter Vigil. We do not understand it fully until we receive the Light of Christ in baptism. Baptism in the Eastern tradition is called Enlightenment.
The imprecatory verses of the psalms are often omitted in liturgical texts. I think they were omitted in the Latin texts or at least in the approved translations largely because liturgists assumed that people would interpret them literally rather than spiritually.
ReplyDeleteAugustine and other Church Fathers saw the psalms not only as hymns and prayers but also as great models for Christian life. Homilies and commentaries spent a lot of time promoting their correct understanding in the light of Christ and the Church.
This is a very interesting post. I haven't seen Hegseth's prayer, but I suppose it doesn't follow this traditional hermeneutic for Old Testament texts. That seems wrong, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteBtw, I just bought an Augstine reader, called "Augustine in His Own Words". There is a chapter on Augustine's scripture interpretation which I look forward to reading.
ReplyDeleteWhen my husband was in deacon formation, a Benedictine Sister taught the segment on the Divine Office. The NCR article sounds a lot like what she said about the imprecatory Psalms. I have a hard time getting past the text of them, so I mostly don't pray with them. Psalm 149 starts out uplifting and full of praise. And then it goes downhill. So I skip verses 6-9.
ReplyDeleteI think there are only five of the imprecatory Psalms, out of 150 used by the western church. So Hegseth really had to go cherry picking to compose a prayer using the Psalms which fit his agenda. Similar to proof-texting, which uses one's interpretation to shape Scripture, rather than the other way around.