Books by and about the saint. also see CONFESSIONS

Augustinianism: Studies in the Process of Spiritual Tranvaluation by J.D. Green (Studies in Spirituality Supplements: Peeters Publishers) The book is about the evolution of Augustinianism' in a process of 'spiritual transvalu­ation' as Augustine of Hippo's thought was appropriated by spiritual masters in the medi­aeval period. The chapters deal with a range of experiences in 'spiritual transvaluation' beginning with Augustine's own philosophic transvaluation of Christian `affectivity'. The first study is about St Gregory the Great's 'pastoral' transvaluation of Augustine's spiri­tuality; the second about William of St Thierry's 'mystical' transvaluation in the twelfth century; and the final one is about Walter Hilton's `christo-centric' transvaluation, writ­ing as an Augustinian Canon Regular in late fourteenth century England. The Epilogue draws together the themes of each chapter as a reflection about the spiritual nature of Augustinianism'.

After reading history at Oxford, John D. Green worked in industry for twenty eight years. He then obtained the degrees of MA. by thesis and PhD. at the University of Melbourne where the research which provides the basis for the book was undertaken. Dr. Green has more recently lectured in early Church history at the Catholic Theological College in Melbourne.

 

Excerpt: Tertullian, the Christian convert and theologian, writing at the turn of the third century, had thrown out the challenge to his Gnostic opponents: 'What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?' His answer had been: 'Our instruction comes from "the porch of Solomon"'. His North African compatriot, St Augustine of Hippo, himself a convert but living at the turn of the fifth century, would not have disagreed. Nevertheless Augustine travelled to 'the porch of Solomon' by way of Athens. In doing so he demonstrated how they were related and in the - process produced a body of teaching, which was of seminal importance to the understanding of what was meant by Christian faith. He consolidated the achievement by living the faith he preached.

Augustinianism' defies definition because it is a symbol which continues to accumulate meaning as time passes. It is the creation of numerous individuals who have demonstrated in their lives and teaching how Augustine's 'attitude of love' might be applied to develop some aspect of his thought which was germane to their own circumstances.

This is a study of 'Augustinianism' as a process of transvaluation. It is a description of 'Augustinianism' in this limited way and while by no means com­prehensive, it may illustrate, hopefully, the way in which Augustine's influence has been transmitted as a developing tradition of spirituality which is recognis­ably 'Augustinian' in its seminal inspiration.

The first chapter deals with Augustine's own appropriation of the Christian faith as a transvaluation process. His conversion to Christianity was both a moral and intellectual process. Both aspects were marked by particular events but devel­oped in parallel as his understanding of the reciprocal relevance of the Hellenic `religio-philosophic' and Judaeo-Christian inheritances became clear in the chal­lenges he faced as a Christian pastor. For Augustine the 'moral' conversion came first and enabled him to develop the Hellenic traditions as the handmaid of the Christian. In doing so he was able to articulate a philosophic structure for the `faith' dependent on a creator whose love was both boundless and ever-present.

Augustine evolved a method through which faith might be developed and understood. It was not a 'system'. This characteristic gave his teaching the appear­ance of a resource, like a dictionary or encyclopaedia, which was a guide to the `language' of faith and a series of articles about it, both of which needed addi­tions and updating as times changed.

Yet his teaching had to be preserved if the resource was to be made available to future generations. That it was preserved and widely disseminated was partly the result of his own foresight and brilliance and partly that of the development of monastic styles of Christian community.

Augustine's Retractions illustrates his foresight. In the last years of his life he edited the vast volume of his works which had been carefully stored in his library and where necessary revised them. The process of revision which he undertook in the light of the development of his thought illustrates how new circumstances change the teacher's perspective and suggests that 'transvaluation' is not a process of unimaginative imitation but is based on the counterpoint between faith and experience.

The monastic community he formed around him as bishop of Hippo, pro­duced 'disciples' familiar with his library if not fully able to grasp its import. One of his 'disciples', Possidius, bishop of Calama, in the last days of Augustine's life when Hippo was under siege, catalogued the library. How, after the siege, it was transported to Rome is still a puzzle. Nevertheless, the service Possidius rendered in cataloguing the library assisted the process of preservation.

The development of monasticism as a combination of prayer, reflection and study, was a key factor both in the preservation and dissemination of Augustine's works.

It is no accident that when one looks for exemplars of Augustinianism they are found in monastic communities or in people with monastic connections. This study is structured around three case studies. The masters whose teaching is explored in all of them have monastic connections and indeed lived in times when the monastic life was at a critical period of its evolution.

The first of these is St Gregory the Great at the turn of the seventh century. In many respects his spiritual evolution paralleled that of Augustine. His great achievements were reflected in the honour bestowed on him by the Church as `the Great'. His contemplative experience as a founder of monasteries and as an abbot enabled him to appropriate Augustine's spirituality as his own. His great prestige in the following centuries gave authority to his teaching and, to the extent that he absorbed it, to Augustine's teaching also. Gregory thus became an important channel through whose works Augustine's influence was disseminated.

The subject of the second case study is William of St Thierry in the twelfth century. William was both the abbot of a Benedictine monastery of St Thierry near Reims in France and also, later in life, a Cistercian in the new foundation of Signy in the Ardennes. He was primarily a contemplative and a teacher who

sought to explain his own experience of contemplation to those in his commu­nity. His own understanding was based on Augustine's thought but developed in the light of his own experience. He was also the friend of St Bernard and came in contact with the Cistercian reform as it developed in the teaching of its most charismatic advocate. William's most influential work on contemplation, the Golden Epistle, was for many centuries attributed to St Bernard. Although its influence reflected its own merits, there is little doubt that its dissemination and influence owed much to its attribution to St Bernard. To the extent that Augus­tine's basic insights permeated William's teaching, it also influenced Cistercian thought in a transvalued form.

The third case study is about Walter Hilton in late fourteenth century Eng­land. In the last years of his life he was an Augustinian canon regular living in a community which practised a form of religious life, partly contemplative and partly active: The rule combined the monastic tradition of a stable community with the active evangelical work associated with the tradition of the mendicant orders. The fourteenth century was a time of transition in many respects. The Church authorities were attempting to revive religious practice in the face of social and political change, the dislocations caused by plague epidemics, and the heterodox teaching of Wycliffe and the Lollard movement. Hilton's teaching reflected his experience of spiritual direction for both religious and laity. He had absorbed Augustine's teaching and transvalued it to meet the pedagogical chal­lenges he faced. The number of extant manuscripts of his major work, the Scale of Perfection, suggests a wide dissemination of his teaching and a demand that perhaps reflects the unsettled nature of the society in which he lived.

These case studies illustrate the way in which Augustine's insights were appropriated and transvalued in the light of different challenges and an evolv­ing Christian self-understanding. The Epilogue will attempt to draw together the main strands of the evolution of 'Augustinianism' as revealed in these stud­ies as counterpoint to Augustine's own experience of the Christian faith and its appropriation.

 

Rhetoric and Exegesis in Augustine's Interpretation of Romans 7:24-25a by Thomas F. Martin (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity, Vol. 47: Edwin Mellen Press) Excerpt  from preface by J. Patout Bums

Both contemporary religious concern to break out of the narrow limits set by the historical-critical method and post-modern theories of the polyvalence of texts, have directed the attention and efforts of historians of Christian thought to the practice of scriptural interpretation in the early church. The Bible de Τοus les Temps series examines principle and practice; the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture illustrates the richness of the result. All are the offspring on Henri de Lubac's Exegese Miedvale, itself now available in English translation.' Others have undertaken to study Augustine's theory and practice of interpretation, as well as the use of particular books of the Bible in individual works, as the footnotes of the present volume amply attest. In this study, Thomas F. Martin, O.S.A. has followed the explication of α single text through the whole of Augustine's career and corpus of writings. In so doing, he has taken α major step forward in the study of patristic and particularly Augustinian exegesis.

The analysis focuses on only two verses, Romans 7:2425a, but these two form α crucial text. It serves not only as the culmination of Paul's prior reflections on the power of sin and role of the Law but as the transition, at least in the Latin version used in North Africa to the exploration of the efficacy of Christ's grace. Augustine's understanding of these two issues changed and set the course of western Christianity until the modem period when the historical critical method challenged his interpretation. Following this text allows Fr. Martin to track the dialectical relationship between the development of Augustine's theological anthropology and his practice of exegesis. By following this one text, he is able to show how Augustine's theology moved forward by fits and starts, as he experimented with α new reading in various contexts before settling on it, only to notice greater riches in the text and begin exploring again. Fr. Martin is able, moreover, to add α third stage in the explanation of the text to the two that have already been distinguished. This study's attempt to work Augustine's sermons and psalm commentaries into the sequence of his doctrinal treatises and letters is α bold move. While the Retractations maps α sequence for the treatises, on which many of the letters can be confidently located, the chronology of the sermons and commentaries is much less secure. Yet the risk is rewarded not only by α fuller documenting of the evolution of interpretations but by suggesting new hypotheses regarding the influence of his audiences and their settings on Augustine's development.

Unlike most of the studies that have proceeded, Fr. Martin's investigation underlines the contribution of his rhetoric to Augustine's exegetical practice.            He provides α careful analysis of Augustine's appreciation of Paul's eloquence, which in turn legitimated the employment of the bishop's own developed skills in the exposition of the scriptures. The reflections on the relation between wisdom and eloquence which are put forward in the final book of De doctrίna christiana, finished at the end of Augustine's life, build upon α developed appreciation of the persuasive power with which Paul set forth the truth of the gospel. More importantly, this study demonstrates that Augustine's adaptation to different audiences forced him to explore and led him to discover new meanings in the Pauline text. Augustine began to move beyond his first understanding of the passage in explaining the text to his fellow ascetics and preaching to the congregation in Hippo. In addressing these baptized Christians he realized that Paul's cry might arise from the heart of someone already endowed with grace and engaged in α sustained struggle against inborn lust and ingrained habits. He then applied this interpretation to himself, already α bishop, in Confessions. Not only does the study distinguish the learned readers to whom Augustine addressed his early commentaries from the congregations to which he preached but shows that the sermons presented in Carthage tended to be more ambitious and daring in their approach to the difficult Pauline text than those preached in Hippo Regius. Julian of Eclanum's omission or intentional exclusion of a particular phrase in one of his statement's led Augustine to notice and develop more fully α theme what might initially have been no more than α casual contrast between the body of this death which oppresses the Christian and the body of that life which Adam enjoyed in Paradise.

The spare and disciplined exposition ο£ Augustine's successive interpretations of thought of Paul which Fr. Martin provides in the body of his text is complemented by the richness of his references and footnotes. The narrative chooses representative instances to trace the development rather than plodding through an exhaustive catalogue ο£ every appearance of the selected verses in Augustine's literary corpus. The footnotes, particularly in the first chapter, document the modem study of the interpretation of Romans during the fourth and fifth centuries in the western church. More than most American scholars, Fr. Martin draws heavily upon and introduces his colleagues to the contributions of scholars writing in Italian and Spanish. In the later chapters, the reader will often be surprised by the graciousness with which he not only signals points raised by the is- sues under analysis but then leads the reader α little way down these many side roads branching off his highway by suggesting the best secondary literature for further exploration. The book deserves α first reading for the argument itself and α second for the fuller documentation.

In a series of article and contributions to professional societies, Thomas F. Martin has been establishing himself as a commentator and expositor of Augustine's exegetical theory and practice. By this volume, he takes his rightful position in the labor shared by his religious brothers and academic colleagues.

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