Bishop Books

Besides what is written in the book description, I would like to add that the author examines six main theologians of the "Paris School": Florensky, Florovsky, Fedotov, Bulgakov, Berdiaev, Zenkovsky.

Much of Augustine's theology was born out of debate and personal experiences, not dialogue. His debates and fights with Donatism, Pelagianism and Manicheanism shaped him significantly. Moreover, his own perception of sinfulness penetrates many of his pages. Combined, these factors have led him to emphasize certain points of theology that many or most Eastern fathers find excessive or just wrong. Obviously he is still one of the Church's great fathers, but not a normative father for the East.

This book demonstrates that the major point of departure for the Paris theologians from Augustine was over the notions of freedom and grace. Of course, students of Church history will not find this surprising, but what is useful about this book is that it is to my mind the only systematic treatment of Augustine by Orthodox thinkers of such standing and influence. Moreover, it demolishes the argument that the Orthodox in the 20th century were unfamiliar with Augustine's works. They nearly all read and understood him in the original Latin and were conversant with the background of his writings and opponents. They are also quite sympathetic with many of his points. Moreover, it shows that Orthodoxy is not "a monolith". Bulgakov in particular had a strong grasp of Augustine's work. Unfortunately, his sophiological speculations have made his own works suspect and thus it would be too easy for many modern scholars who favor the disparagement of Augustine to pile it on and condemn Bulgakov at the same time. If you read French or Russian, you will be able to study this aspect of Bulgakov, however. Not yet in English.

A final useful feature of this book is its appendix of Russian Orthodox thinkers/theologians of the 19th and 20th centuries, briefly outlining their life and thought.

This is a great book and I recommend it highly!

Review of Augustine and the Catechumenate William Harmless Augustine and the Catechumenate (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1995). 406 pages with charts, index and bibliography. $34.95. St. Augustine: priest, bishop, theologian, doctor of the church, polemicist, apolo-gist, scholar-and catechist. Augustine is respected and loved by the Christian church for his many roles, but his role as a catechist has been the least well known, until now. Wil-liam Harmless has provided us with a magnificent portrait of Augustine the catechist. Harmless wrote this book to assist the Roman Catholic Church's Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). The RCIA was launched in 1972 by the Vatican thus "reversing a thousand years of initiatory practice and attitude" (p. 1). Harmless' operating assumption is that "if the Church has found itself increasingly renewed by the wisdom and richness of these ancient rituals and their underlying pastoral vision, then the Church might find itself similarly renewed by our gleaning the best from ancient styles of catechesis" (p. 25). The RCIA has been used with great effectiveness in many Roman Catholic parishes. It is basically an adoption of the early church's classic catechumenate process, as that process reached a high point in the fourth century. Harmless sets out to investigate one example of the ancient catechumenate: the catechumenate of St. Augustine of Hippo. The reason for this is simple. Augustine wrote a number of treatises on the subject of catechesis and the catechumenate; he is the only pa-tristic author from whom we have samples of each of the four stages of the ancient catechumenate; there are excellent critical editions of Augustine's works, both in the origi-nal language and in English; and finally, Harmless notes that within the past sixty years there have been many archeological and textual discoveries that offer much detailed infor-mation about Augustine and his Church in Hippo. Harmless organizes his book in a clear and orderly fashion, something that can not always be said of scholars' books. In addition to the book's excellent organization, Harm-less' writing style is very engaging. This book was a delight to read. This reviewer found it hard to put down, so interesting is Harmless' narrative descriptions of Augustine as preacher, catechist, exegete, pastor and church leader. Throughout the book Harmless of-fers direct quotes from Augustine's sermons, a major source of our knowledge of Augustine's catechetical method and content. His translation of Augustine's sermons is vivid, as was Augustine in the original. Harmless recounts how the congregation in Augustine's day was often swept up by the Bishop's masterful rhetoric, applauding, weeping, cheering or shouting out Bible verses as Augustine preached. Harmless' book will both complement and supplement other treatments of Augustine in English. Definitive studies include Van der Meer's Augustine the Bishop; Brown's Augustine of Hippo and Bonner's St. Augustine of Hippo . For the best, and most complete, translation of Augustine's sermons into English we have The Works of Saint Augustine (New City Press, 1995). In this collection of Augustine's sermons, translator Edmund Hill has captured the vividness of Augustine's oratory and relies on the best manuscripts available, and includes copius notes. Eventually, the project hopes to make available, for the first time, Augustine's complete writings in English. Those who know Augustine only through the Victorian English of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers collection will be delighted by the New City Press edition of Augustine's works. Harmless traces Augustine's own catechetical experience under Ambrose of Milan and then takes a look at how Augustine approached each phrase of the classic catechumenate model: evangelization, catechumenate, candidate for Baptism (Lenten catechesis), and then post-Baptismal catechesis. In each section, Harmless masterfully il-lustrates how Augustine pulled out all the stops in his efforts to reach each catechumen. He especially focuses on Augustine the master orator, indicating how Augustine both used and ignored the classic rules of rhetoric in his catechetical work. For Augustine, reaching both the head and the heart was the goal, neither whipping up hearers into mindless emotional frenzy nor boring them to death with encyclopedic lectures on theological facts. Harmless does not gloss over the challenges faced by Augustine, or paint this as some sort of utopian era for the church. He makes it clear that Augustine grew frustrated with his congregations. Writing about the catechetical task, Augustine once rehearsed the catechumen's vices: "Those depraved persons who in mobs fill the churches in a bodily sense only: . . . drunkards, covetous, extortioners, gamblers, adulterers, fornicators, lov-ers of shows, wearers of idolatrous charms, soothsayers, astrologers, or diviners employ-ing vain and unholy arts" (p. 133). This was not a "pure church" - as if there ever was such a thing. Since we are not Donatists, we should not try to locate perfection in this fallen order either, or else we will become either self-righteous hypocrites or despairing pessi-mists. Harmless' shows us how one Christian theologian and teacher struggled with the all too human qualities of his congregation and continued to strive for uncompromising excel-lence in service of the Gospel. William Harmless has provided a true gem to the Christian church. He offers a very organized description of Augustine's catechetical work, in the process helping us to under-stand even more this great doctor of the church and how his genius for rhetoric was com-bined with his passion for teaching the Faith. Augustine would be pleased not only with what Harmless has to say, but how he has said it, and so will Harmless' readers. Paul T. McCain St. Louis, Missouri October 29, 1996

I would strongly recommend that any reader be familiar with at least Augustine's major works before tackling this book. With that said, the book is truly fascinating. This interpretation of Augustine is brilliantly original and remarkably timely. Intensely written, the author nevertheless keeps the book manageable and not overly-scholarly. For anyone who has ever wondered about knowledge, self-knowledge, reflection and action, please be my guest.

O Daly's masterful survey of Augustine's colossal work, the City of God, is in itself the foremost study of its kind, covering as it does the twenty-two books of the City of God, with a fine cornucopia of scholarly and insightful analyses, summaries and sweeping commentary. Principle themes to the City of God are highlighted and the profound wealth of philosophical, theological, historical, biblical and apocalyptic thought inherent to the text is elucidated and discussed in a terse, clear-cut fashion [also illuminated is the contextual setting and the cultural and literary stimuli which led to the City of God's composition]. Therefore, this reader's guide is not only the most scholarly treatment on the City of God available, but it is also the best and most accommodating means of approaching this most extraordinary text. In a word, Gerard O' Daly has given us the ultimate companion to Bishop Augustine's City of God; and this volume should be standard reading in institutions where the City of God is studied; also, it should go hand-in-hand with any full-scale research conducted upon the text. [See also O Daly's work, The Poetry of Boethius, which is an artful critique on the poetry found in Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy.]

In order for this review to be understood properly you must understand that this is a study guide for the "Confessions" and may be ordered through further inquiry...I submitted the review to the actual book "Shepherd's Notes" but it appeared here, so I hope this may help.

Shepherd's Notes is an exemplary force acting as a quick and easy systematic approach to venture into the key literary and theological themes manifested by the greatest Christian thinkers the world has known. The scripture indexes, historical and cultural passages, quotes and key persons, critical commentary and summaries - all headed by indicative icons- further the value of this already resourceful and valuable study aid. Use it before, during, or after reading the classic at hand...any way you use Shepherd's Notes will pay off. Augustine's heralded "City of God" is also available in Shepherd's Notes...highly recommended for the busy student or reader in general.

The book provides a new perspective on the meaning and structure of Augustine's often misunderstood masterpiece. It illuminates the degree to which the communicative purpose of the work is to convert its readers, i.e. a protreptic purpose.

It is said that if anyone claims to have read all of Augustine, he is a liar. Certainly, given the sheer amount of written works by Augustine, some even found recently, this is a reasonable phrase. But Coral Harrison comes very close to proving this phrase wrong.

In this exceptionally well-written text, Harrison outlines the major threads in Augustine's thought, seeing them in the context of his life and his times. Along with this, she clearly has a good grasp on the veritable ocean of secondary literature on Augustine.

For those not familiar with St. Augustine's theology and philosophy, this is an excellent introduction to the bishop of Hippo Regius. For those who are familiar with Augustine, or even specialize in him, this is still a helpful text. As Augustine's thought goes both far and wide, Harrison illustrates the connections between them, as well as helping the experienced reader see elements of Augustine's thought that he/she may not be familiar with.

As a warning, though - one should not take this text as exhaustive. So, for instance, on Augustine's political theory and views on coercion, Harrison gives some pages to this, but only hinting at its complexity. Certainly, this says nothing bad about her book - one can't address everything in 220 pages. But it is a caution.

One other note. One sees, at times, "context" used in as a codeword for "postmodern" or the like. Thankfully, this book is spared that nonsense. Harrison's book is solid, well-versed in primary and secondary literature, and not pedantic. Highly recommended.

Scott gives an excellent treatment of Augustine, his times, and his answers to contemporary issues in Christianity. He shows how, in dealing with a rebellious religious movement, Augustine came to oppose the right of Christians to choose or reject their leaders. And in doing this, Augustine felt it necessary to under-gird his argument with a theological justification. He needed to deal with the popular assumption that freedom was a Christian value. If ordinary Christians must not be allowed to choose which preachers they preferred, what actually disqualified them from doing so? Surely Augustine felt that he spoke in the best interests of his parishioners, and not just in defence of power holders. So why was it best for the parishioners to give up choosing their leaders? The answer, Augustine claimed, was that they were creatures trapped in a state of inborn sin, which rendered them blind to God's truth. In that case, to choose their own leaders could only mean the blind leading the blind:

"If man were good, he would be other than he is. Now, however, since he is as he is, he is not good, and does not have it in his power to be good either because he does not see what he ought to be, or because he does see, but does not have it in his power to be what he sees he ought to be. Who would doubt that this is a punishment?""

Obviously the body was tainted with inborn disobedience and could not be trusted. Augustine actually used the word libido, meaning a lower drive which should be subject to a higher good. And in the face of this problem, Augustine saw basically two options -- to give free reign to the chaos of disobedient passion (as the common people were obviously wont to do), or else subject human weakness to a superhuman authority.

Scott shows us the conflicting values and viewpoints of all parties involved in a defining period of Christian history. I ended up with increased sympathy for all sides concerned, and more insight on my own options.

--author of "Different Visions of Love"

This anthology contains 35 relatively short letters and sermons by the Church Father Augustine, dealing mostly with political and legal issues. They should really be read together with Augustine's major work "The City of God", but are quite informative even in isolation. The anthology also contains an introduction by the editor, plus extensive footnotes, and short biographies of the persons mentioned in Augustine's letters. Since the translation is occasionally somewhat strange ("security" instead of "salvation" etc), readers shouldn't skip the translator's notes either. For people with the right sense of humour, the footnotes can actually be quite entertaining. One of them explains what the Book of Job is, presumably because the anthology is directed at students of political history, and the editor doesn't expect them to be well versed in matters Biblical! Personally, I thought the Book of Job was common knowledge... :-)

Augustine's letters are adressed to high-ranking Roman officials, both governors and military commanders. His letters are candid in tone, sometimes even provocative. They contain fewer formal greetings than the officials' letters adressed to him. This says something about the power of the Catholic Church in the Late Roman Empire. As bishop of Hippo in North Africa, Augustine was in effect a powerful state official in his own right. This explains the tone of his letters, and why he could treat even the emperor's men as equals. While ultimate decision-making power was in the hands of the imperial court, Church councils could lobby the court and perhaps get the emperor to do their bidding. Augustine was therefore very much part of the Old Men's Club of the Late Empire.

On most issues, it's difficult for a modern to sympathize with Augustine. His stern blend of other-wordly Platonism, belief in original sin, and predestination strikes us as typically "medieval" and "dark age". The Doctor of Grace, as he was later called, was also against freedom of worship. He believed that everyone in the Roman Empire should be Catholic, and that the emperors had the right to force people to join the Church. After all, it's all for their own good. Augustine also rejected the right to rebel against authority, any authority. Bad emperors are a chastisment from God, and should be suffered by the good. If they are really bad, it's right to speak out against them, but solely for the purpose of becoming a martyr. In one of his sermons, included in this book, Augustine rebukes his congregation for attacking and killing a corrupt imperial tax-collector. From his Neo-Platonic perspective, Augustine declares that life is short, death inevitable and earthly possesions ultimately meaningless. Taking the law into your own hands is therefore pointless and, indeed, sinful. Few people today would take up such a position, and rightly so. Augustine comes across as a defender of the Late Roman status quo, at a time when the degenerate Empire was already breaking up at its seams.

In other ways, however, "Political Writings" shows a somewhat unexpected and more humane side of Augustine than we might have expected. For starters, Augustine was against capital punishment, and often tried to get such sentences mitigated, even when directed against anti-Catholic rioters and rebels. His opposition to the death penalty was based on the following reasoning: people who die unrepentant will spend eternity in Hell, therefore it's better not to kill them, but to reform them instead. Augustine was also against torture, a commonplace practice even in the Christianized Roman Empire, although his opposition to this practice wasn't entirely consistent, since he didn't mind suspects being beaten up! At one point, the Roman governor of Africa, Macedonius, apparently sent Augustine a letter complaining about the bishop's constant intercession in favour of obviously guilty criminals. In his response, Augustine points out that since everyone is a sinner, showing mercy to criminals is a religious duty, and he explains that he has sometimes even attempted to get victims of theft to drop their cases against the thieves, rather than demanding restitution.

At the same time, Augustine wasn't always consistent in his attitude. In some letters, as already noted, he criticizes even victims of burglary or fraud for demanding compensation from the criminal. In other cases, he proposes fines himself as an alternative to the death penalty. The most interesting document in "Political Writings" is Letter 185, where Augustine admits that his attitude towards the Donatists have hardened. The Donatists were a group of Christians in North Africa regarded as heretical by the Catholic Church, and hence illegal, which didn't stop them from commanding wide-spread support, and often violently attacking both Roman landlords and Catholic clergy. Originally, Augustine opposed using force against the Donatists, simply calling for Roman military protection against Donatist attacks, trying to convince the Donatists of the error of their ways by peaceful preaching. Only in areas with Donatist violence against Catholics would the Donatists be punished by fines, and only their bishops. Emperor Honorius, however, went much further, and decreed that all Donatists were liable to harsh punishments, simply for being Donatists. In Letter 185, Augustine seems to come around to this harder position, fed up with Donatist resistance.

The final section deals with Augustine's view of war, always a tricky subject for Christians. After all, the Sermon on the Mount seems to preach non-resistance to evil. Augustine argues that Christians might nevertheless become soldiers and wage wars. After all, when Roman soldiers approached John the Baptist, he didn't tell them to quit the army, but simply not to commit crimes against humanity. And what about the Roman centurion who asked Jesus to heal his son, or Cornelius, the righteous Gentile who became a Christian? They were both soldiers. A particularly interesting letter in this section is no. 220, sent to Boniface, a Roman commander in North Africa who had rebelled against the empress Galla Placidia. True to form, Augustine calls on Boniface to make peace with the Empire, and stop his troops from plundering the North African countryside, concentrating on fighting the "barbarians" instead. Boniface did eventually make his peace with the empress, but to late to save Roman Africa. When Augustine lied on his deathbed in AD 430, Hippo was besieged by the Vandals...

In sum, this volume is extremely interesting, especially for serious stundents of Church history, Late Roman history or theology. Recommended.

In this book we are given a psychobiographical treatment of Augustine's life and work, with a particular emphasis on his early period. The book draws in a good deal of detail and theory about the society surrounding Augustine in the fourth century, and looks at some of the issues with the way moderns approach the investigation of Augustine the man and Augustine the later inventions.

In the first chapter, Dixon takes up the issue of how Augustine is to be viewed.

Even if one disagrees with him, rejects his ideas, or positively excoriates him, one has to admit that he described human life powerfully and inspired many readers with the hope for the participation of humans in the love of God.

Dixon points out that, going beyond the field of religion and history, Augustine's influence extends to other fields in ways subtle and gross. Citing influences through William James and Erik Erikson, she points out that, the influence of Augustine might be lurking in the thought of any scholar of psychology.

She uses the image of a water buffalo listening to a symphony, an old Javanese image, to ask what, in fact, do we hear when we listen? Not all hearings are equal.

She states, I will use the metaphor of the symphony, and its contrast to the tuneless water buffalo, as a reminder of the challenge to bring together hermeneutics, historical studies, literary considerations, and social sciences in the effort to understand how Augustine's Christianity helped him discover and compose, from elements of culture and experience, a meaningful view of his crowded and disparate life.

Dixon looks at society, culture and the person of Augustine as the broad categories of examination. Drawing on the tools of sociology, psychological anthropology and cultural psychology, Augustine is laid bare from the inside out. But this is not meant to be a methodological straightjacket, either.

The categories society, culture and person were always intended as tools of analysis, not definitions of fixed truths.

The primary lens through which this book treats Augustine is through the pivotal work 'Confessions'. A work unique for its time and the first of its kind, the 'Confessions' of Augustine represent in varying degrees the first modern autobiography, the first psychological examination of an individual, and a cutting-edge literary work that helped define both an end to the classical period and the beginnings of medieval thought strands.

The second chapter examines the ideas of person and world, which are in late antiquity quite different from modern ideas. The one and the many are vastly different; the idea of individual liberties and freedoms, the idea of personal ambition and social mobility are foreign concepts for the most part. Only the loftiest of persons could entertain ambitions, and rare indeed was the lower/working class individual who achieved or even aspired to much more. Dixon explores the various modern psychological explanations of how individuals achieve identity, comparing this with the data found in the 'Confessions'. She also draws in some theory of symbolic meaning a la Ricouer to explore hidden and intended meanings throughout his text and society.

The remaining primary chapters deal with Augustine's life period by period, exploring the ideas of culture, society and person in Augustine's childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. These were the formative years for Augustine, and while Augustine's life and product certainly continued to mature throughout his years, he had a remarkable consistency of reflection and consideration of his early influences, many of which he continually held before himself, perhaps out of guilt, perhaps out of a sense of regret, perhaps even as a reminder of what he needed to guard against in his future. The information contained in these chapters is indeed interesting, rather unique in approach among Augustinian scholarship. While bits and pieces are certainly used elsewhere, and are adequately documented and referenced, the collection as a whole is worthwhile.

Perhaps my highest praise goes to the final chapter, 'Reflections on Hearing Music in Life'. Dixon does a good job at tying the strands together and presenting, once again drawing on the metaphor of the water buffalo and the symphony, what scholars and other interested readers should be listening for in the works of Augustine, and those who write about him.

She wrote, One of the most challenging questions about Augustine, given my interpretation of his life and thought, asks whether he remained bound by his childhood experiences and his infantile unconscious dynamics, or whether he moved on to a mature adult redirection of them, perhaps even a transcendence of them.

Dixon finally asks why we need to set up the dichotomy of child versus adulthood that early psychological theory puts forward. Do any of us escape our early influences? Is this even desirable? Quoting Peter Brown's authoritative biographical work on Augustine, that the Confessions are 'the self-portrait of a convalescent', Dixon agrees that there is some element of self-healing going on here, and that in this process, Augustine shows us a very real element of the human condition.

'Having been taught by Augustine, we could do a great deal more for each other'. We could act on love for our neighbours, offer care for their bodies and instruction for their minds, and discover joy in their apprehensions of music in their lives. W could apply our conscious efforts to hearing the music of our own lives, even if we never perceive its unconscious sources. We might even discover in these efforts an approach to God in the company and service of our neighbours: human, animal, inanimate, and those already hallowed beyond this earthly life.

The book contains a worthwhile bibliography of primary and secondary sources (13 pages of such), extensive endnotes (42 pages for a 220-page text), and a good index. It is produced by the Chalice Press, the publishing arm of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), who are the denomination that founded my seminary. The author, Sandra Lee Dixon, is associate professor of religious studies at the University of Denver.

Take and read.