Augustine's spirit has probably never been re-presented more faithfully than in Botticelli's "Saint Augustine in His Study," one of the greatest of the paintings included in the Museum of Fine Arts exhibition, "Botticelli and the Search for the Divine." One glimpses the vigor and elegance of Augustine's thought and writing, a force always looking up to the divine measure: intellectual and spiritual power humbly available to God.

The saint's study is that of a Renaissance humanist, including an armillary sphere and geometrical drawings in the open book above Augustine's head.

We are told in the object label that the scene depicted refers to a legend: at the moment (the hour of Compline) when Saint Jerome dies (which would mean the depicted scene takes place on my birthday, a thing I find kind of cool), he becomes present hundreds of miles away to tell Augustine: "He might as soon enclose the ocean in a small vessel, as soon clasp the whole earth in his fist, as soon halt the movement of the heavens as describe the beatitude of the saints without having experienced it."

This voice startles Augustine. Note that he is on the verge of spilling his inkwell. The voice draws his eyes above the whole created cosmos, represented by the armillary sphere. But what Jerome says is not a thing unknown to Augustine. His whole posture is that of a man given to both study and supplication of the divine wisdom and love.

For any servant-theologian, this painting should be an emblem. Botticelli has bodied-forth our deepest aspiration.