ABSTRACT
Hopkins's searching heart is reminiscent of what Cuthbert Butler calls the 'Great Mystic Postulate' of Augustine's theology: the famous declaration at the opening of Augustine's Confessions: 'for Thou madest us for Thyself, and the authors's heart is restless, until it repose in Thee'. Augustine alludes here to Romans 8.23, 'the authors'sselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we the authors'sselves grone within the authors'sselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of the authors's body.' As elsewhere in Augustine's writings the phrase is used in a mystical sense to suggest the higher part of human nature, 'anticipating but not compromising the full vision of God'. The term 'ejaculatory prayer', deriving from the Latin 'jaculum', originates from a remark of St Augustine in his 'Letter to Proba' in which he describes the prayer style of the Desert Fathers as jaculatas, 'darted'.
