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101. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 51 > Issue: 1
Thomas Clemmons

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This article examines Augustine’s early anthropology, particularly through De Genesi aduersus Manichaeos. The most thorough treatment of this topic is found in the enduring work of Robert J. O’Connell, SJ. O’Connell argues that Augustine drew directly from the Enneads in De Genesi aduersus Manichaeos to formulate his anthropology. This article evaluates and critiques the evidence and implications of O’Connell’s position concerning Augustine’s articulation of the “fall of the soul.” I argue that an attentive text-based reading of De Genesi aduersus Manichaeos reveals the shortcomings of O’Connell’s “Plotinian” rendering of Augustine’s anthropology. More importantly, I show that De Genesi aduersus Manichaeos illuminates dimensions of Augustine’s anthropology often overlooked. These include the human’s transformation to spiritalis through Christ and the eschatological configuration of the caeleste corpus. In contrast to O’Connell’s theory, which emphasizes the necessary “circularity” of Augustine’s anthropological framework (that is, the soul “returns” to a condition identical to the aboriginal state), I argue that in De Genesi aduersus Manichaeos Augustine advances an anthropology that is not merely “circular.”
102. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 51 > Issue: 1
Doug Clapp

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Epistula 151 shows Augustine trying to exert pressure on a high-ranking imperial official from his position outside of the senatorial elite. The aristocrat Caecilianus had written a letter, now lost, chastising Augustine for his lack of correspondence. Augustine’s reply begins and ends according to typical epistolary conventions. The heart of the letter, however, narrates Augustine’s harrowing experience of the arrest and execution of the brothers Marcellinus and Apringius by the imperial commander Marinus. The profound spiritual contrast between villain and victims has the potential to damage Caecilianus’s reputation, forcing him into a corner. He can only agree with Augustine and act accordingly.

book reviews and books received

103. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 51 > Issue: 1
Paul M. Blowers

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104. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 51 > Issue: 1
Toni Alimi

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105. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 51 > Issue: 1
Jérôme Lagouanère

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106. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 51 > Issue: 1
Miles Beckwith

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107. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 51 > Issue: 1
Andrew C. Chronister

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108. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 51 > Issue: 1
David A. Hollinger

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109. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 51 > Issue: 1
Jonathan D. Teubner

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110. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 51 > Issue: 1
Thomas McNulty

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111. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 51 > Issue: 1
Erik Kenyon

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112. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 51 > Issue: 1
Collin Garbarino

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113. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 51 > Issue: 1
John Peter Kenney

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114. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 51 > Issue: 1
Frederick Van Fleteren

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115. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 51 > Issue: 1

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articles

116. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 50 > Issue: 2
Alex Fogleman

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While the connections between exegesis, music, and moral formation are well known, what Augustine’s use of particular metaphors reveals about his theology that more literal renderings do not is less clear. This article explores how Augustine’s use of musical metaphors in Enarratio in Pslamum 32(2) illuminate his understanding of the relationship between grace and human virtue. After first offering a doctrinal description of the rightly ordered will and its Christological foundation, Augustine proceeds to narrate the Christian life as one of various stages of learning to sing the “new song” of Christ. He interprets references to the lyre and psaltery as figures of earthly and heavenly life, and then exegetes the psalm’s language of jubilation as laudatory praise of the ineffable God. The chief contribution of the musical metaphors here are twofold. First, they enable Augustine to display the mysterious process of the will transformed over time. Second, the musical figures help Augustine account for how a human will, encompassed in time, can align with the will of an eternal God whose will is ultimately inexpressible. Augustine’s musical exegesis is able to gesture towards the profound mystery of human life in time and its relation to an eternally un-timed God.
117. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 50 > Issue: 2
Sean P. Robertson

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This article argues that, in De Trinitate, Augustine’s ascent to God via a search for the Trinity is successful precisely because of the emphasis he places on the role of Christ in such an ascent. Unlike scholarship which reads this ascent as an exercise in Neoplatonism—whether as a success or as an intentional failure—this article asserts that Augustine successfully discovers an imago trinitatis in human beings by identifying the essential mediation of the temporal and eternal in the person of the Incarnate Word. Of the work’s fifteen books, Books 4 and 13 focus extensively on the soteriological and epistemological role of Christ, who, in his humility, conquered the pride of the devil and reopened humanity’s way to eternity. The Christology in these books plays an important role in Augustine’s argument by allowing his ascent to move from self-knowledge to contemplation of God. Indeed, it is his understanding of the Christological perfection of the imago dei which allows Augustine to discover a genuine imago trinitatis in human beings. For Augustine, the imago is observable in humanity to the extent that an individual is conformed to Christ, the perfect image of the invisible God. Thus, it is only through Christ that a human being can successfully contemplate the Trinity in this imago.
118. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 50 > Issue: 2
John Y. B. Hood

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Augustine’s doctrine of Jewish witness maintains that, although Christianity has superseded Judaism as the one true religion, it is God’s will that the Jews continue to exist because they preserve and authenticate the Old Testament, divinely-inspired texts which foretold the coming of Jesus. Thus, Christian rulers are obligated to protect the religious liberties of the Jewish people, and the church should focus its missionary efforts on pagans rather than Jews. Current scholarly consensus holds that Augustine adhered consistently to this doctrine from its first iteration in Contra Faustum in 398 until his death in 430. However, this essay argues that, when Augustine spoke his last words on the subject in the Tractatus Aduersus Iudaeos (427–430), the doctrine was no longer his primary guide in thinking about how Christians should interact with Jews. In marked contrast to his earlier views, here, Augustine passionately urges Jews to accept Christ and encourages his congregation to try to convert them. This reading of the Tractatus Aduersus Iudaeos calls for a re-examination of the development of Augustine’s teaching, particularly in the context of dramatic changes in imperial policy toward Jews in the 420s.
119. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 50 > Issue: 2
Charles G. Kim, Jr.

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In a curious turn of phrase that he offered to a particular congregation, Augustine claims that a belch became the Gospel: “Ipsa ructatio euangelium est.” The reference comes at the end of a longer digression in Sermon (s.) 341 [Dolbeau 22] about how John the Evangelist, a fisherman, came to produce his Gospel, namely he belched out what he drank in. The use of a mundane word like ructare in an oration concerning a divine being contravenes a rhetorical prohibition known as tapinosis. This kind of speech was prohibited in ancient oratory because it humiliated the subject of the declamation, and this was especially problematic if the subject was divine. According to Augustine’s reading of scripture, if the divine willfully chose to be humiliated in order to teach humility to others by example, then the person delivering a speech about the divine could contravene this oratorical vice. This article argues that Augustine does precisely that in s. 341 by examining the reasons for Augustine’s use of the terms ructare and iumentum. Specifically, it traces their usage in various Latin texts from Cicero to Plautus to the Psalms. It argues that the virtue of humility is manifest in the very language which Augustine deploys all along the way.

book reviews and books received

120. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 50 > Issue: 2
Zachary Yuzwa

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