Augustinian Studies

When Augustine wrote about having discovered a hope (diuersa spes) different from the political ambitions that drew him to Rome then Milan (spes saeculi), he referred to Christians’ hopes for celestial reward. But several colleagues suggest that he also harbored hopes for a kinder political culture. Discussions of Augustine’s hopes have enlivened the study of political theory and political theology for several generations. During the twenty-first century two influential volumes took him as their inspiration for “hopeful citizenship” and “democratic citizenship.” Recently, two perceptive studies propose variations on the themes introduced there. What follows deploys several of Hannah Arendt’s observations about Augustine to suggest that his political hopes were somewhat more restricted but more radical than the latest contributions to his political theology suggest.

This is the first of two responses to Peter Iver Kaufman’s article, “Hopefully, Augustine.” Michael Lamb, author of A Commonwealth of Hope: Augustine’s Political Thought, analyzes the conceptual and interpretive assumptions related to hope and politics implicit in Kaufman’s account. Lamb defends an account of hope as a virtue that allows properly ordered hope for political goods and considers the implications of a more expansive view of politics for understanding Augustine’s thought.

This is the second of two responses to Peter Kaufman’s article “Hopefully, Augustine.” Veronica Roberts Ogle, author of Politics and the Earthly City in Augustine’s City of God, probes the degree to which her articulation of Augustinian political activity—and any hopes that might accompany it—overlaps or contrasts with Kaufman’s more minimalist conception.

Augustine uses an unusual scriptural variant for the ending of John 5:19 twelve times. Ten occur in several Trinitarian writings produced around 418–420 CE. There is sufficient evidence to argue that Augustine’s use of Jerome’s translation of Didymus the Blind’s De spiritu sancto accounts for the presence of the variant in these writings. Augustine’s two earlier uses are more difficult to explain. The variant appears once in a sermon delivered at the end of 411 CE and once in De consensu euangelistarum, Book One, which is generally dated to 403–404 CE. The following article argues that Augustine’s use of ps.-Athanasius’s De trinitate, Book XI likely accounts for these two early uses.

This article demonstrates the intersection of Augustine’s pedagogy and theology through a case study of his threats of divine judgment (eschatological cataplexis) in catechesis. Augustine’s use of this rhetorical device resists recent scholarship that has sought to ameliorate Augustine’s vision of hell. Augustine’s cataplexis in the catechumenate elucidates the practical side of his mature theological reflections on hellfire and eternal damnation: why catechists should utilize fear as an act of love, how fear cannot cause salvation in and of itself, and how in the faithful, general fear is refined to shed servile fear, that avoids the bad, in favor of chaste fear, that seeks the good. Augustine’s view of love and teaching prove to be intimately intertwined with his vision of fear and an eternal hell.