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Twentieth-century theologians advanced a consensus position that the doctrine of deification was alien to Augustine's theology—even impossible to square with his other commitments—and that even if traces of the doctrine could be detected, they were, at best, of marginal importance to his intellectual topography. This position, however, has been persuasively challenged by several investigations during the past three decades. This article builds upon these latter investigations to demonstrate how the notion of deification is prevalent throughout his corpus—whether linguistically evident by his use of technical terms such as deificare and cognates, or more often, conceptually in his reflections upon anthropology, Christology, and ecclesiology. The article concludes by noting two of Augustine's distinctive contributions to the post-Nicene development of deification—that is, an emphasis upon the sacramental and ecclesiological contours of the doctrine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Giorgio Agamben's references to a 'coming community' keep readers hunting for its characteristics, specifically for prescriptions that would signal how its political culture might be developed and maintained. His ambivalence toward Augustine prevents him, as well as readers, from discovering contributions the prelate's preferences for compassionate collectives – which especially mark his polemical treatises, correspondence, and sermons – might make to giving a shape to the coming community that comports with many of Agamben's other politically significant remarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the ways in which the thirteen 'biographical superscriptions' which are found throughout the Psalter contribute to the blending of the Davidic voice which they invoke and the corporate voice of the community which receives them. It suggests that by receiving these thirteen Psalms, the canonical community enters an intensive identification with David and participates in the Davidic life and experience. Once this is established, the discussion turns to examine these insights in a Christian theological context in conversation with Augustine's totus Christus principle. It is suggested that the hermeneutical situation created by the biographical superscriptions provides a way for the totus Christus principle to be re-invoked in contemporary interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Just war theory appears ever more alienated from the practice it ostensibly regulates, warfare. An increasingly abstract and esoteric discourse, it can seem very remote from the mud-and-blood actualities of warfare. This is reflective of a broader disconnect between the study of, on the one hand, the ethics of war, and, on the other, the lived experience of war. Seeking to address this problem, this article asks: How can we recentre just war thinking as a 'lived' theory ? It proposes that we can reconnect just war theory to the lived experience of warfare by restoring its historical dialogue with existentialism. It develops this position by reading just war theory through the prism of Albert Camus's writings on political violence. It concludes that Camus's political thoughts provides a set of signposts for the development of a mode of just war theorising that places that the lived experience of warfare at the heart of our ethical thinking about war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Augustine's understanding of the church as part of the totus Christus – the 'whole Christ' – has become an important resource in contemporary theology, offering a robust vision of the church's union with God. Yet a key critique maintains that it threatens to elide the distinction between the perfected Christ and the created church. This article addresses this issue by asking how the totus Christus doctrine relates to the doctrine of participation. For Augustine, participation is a metaphysical category that expresses the creature's dependent, non-divine status, its essential being out of nothing. The totus Christus doctrine is most explicitly an exegetical, not metaphysical doctrine. Nevertheless, by putting these two facets of Augustine's thought together, we can see the way in which they mutually reinforce the view that the astonishing claims of unity in the totus Christus are structured by a larger theological grammar that distinguishes God and creature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I seek to articulate a positive role for the body in our eschatological joy in God. I draw on Augustine's thought to argue that the body makes a positive contribution to our joy in God by being a pedagogy for our imaginations, training us to imagine the beautiful character of God in Christ through embodiment. While Augustine might seem like a surprising choice for this task, I argue that his concepts of ubique totus and the totus Christus provide fertile soil for the growth of an eschatological theology of the body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of rest frames Augustine's Confessions: the expression of the desire for rest and the prayer for God's bestowal of rest. Between these bookends is an extended account of Augustine's past expressed in the form of a confession, one that is saturated with the Psalms. How are these major motifs – rest, memory, confession and the Psalms – related? And how do they relate to the seemingly paradoxical depiction of Augustine's own striving towards rest and God's bestowal of rest? This essay answers these questions by delineating the logic of grace and rest embedded in the Confessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article expands our knowledge of the historical-philosophical process by which the dominant metaphysical account of the Christian God became ascendant. It demonstrates that Marius Victorinus proposed a peculiar model of 'consubstantiality' that utilised a notion of 'existence' indebted to the Aristotelian concept of 'prime matter'. Victorinus employed this to argue that God is a unity composed of Father and Son. The article critically evaluates this model. It then argues that Augustine noticed one of the model's philosophical liabilities but did not publicly name Victorinus when he rejected it, thereby exemplifying the New Testament practice of private 'rebuke' (ἐλέγχɛιν). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article calls for a new understanding of the relationship between classicizing and Christian discourses of exemplarity through a close reading of the figure of Scipio Nasica in Livy, Ab urbe condita Book 29 and Augustine, De ciuitate Dei Books 1–2. Nasica, whose selection as a uir optimus by the Senate in 204 b.c.e. has puzzled modern scholars, was a source of historiographical difficulty for Livy that prompted him to reflect upon exemplarity, mythmaking and the tenuous relationship between past and present. For Augustine, on the other hand, Nasica was a pagan, and thus imperfect, realization of Christian pietas and restraint from luxurious behaviour. Although differing in their interpretations of the Republican exemplum, both Livy and Augustine point to the complexities inherent in invocations of paradigmatic Roman maiores. The close study of Scipio Nasica thus reveals the classicizing precedent lingering behind the supposedly 'Christian' rejections of pre-Christian Roman culture in the De ciuitate Dei. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to expound Rowan Williams's reading of Augustine and Hegel on the question of selfhood. Through an adoption of the tropes of 'tragedy' and 'comedy', the argument will be made that Williams's interpretation of Augustine's portrayal of the soul as wandering and homeless does not imply an unremitting vision of loss and fragmentation. For him, the distentio animi is always placed within a more expansive arc of desire in which the self is continually rediscovered in what is 'other'. This means that my self is most primarily found in the unhanding of restrictive identities that hinder our spiritual growth towards union with God, and also in the discovery of my goods as being bound up with the goods of others. This reading is further expanded by relating Williams's 'Augustine' to Gillian Rose's 'Hegel', thereby showing the way that his reception of this has assisted him in explicating a greater 'comic' undercurrent in his retrieval of selfhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A now conventional model, developed by Robert Markus, sees late Roman cities as fundamentally secular landscapes. Focusing on Augustine's sermon against a feast of the genius of Carthage (Sermo 62), this article argues that narratives of 'secularity' have neglected pagans' own attitudes and the circumstances that drove ordinary Christians' participation in civic rites. Behind Augustine's charges of 'idolatry' lay the religious convictions of the feast's non-Christian sponsors and behind their expectations of Christian attendance lay the recent destruction of a pagan shrine on church property. For Augustine's listeners to construe the feast as religiously irrelevant was an expression not of routine social solidarity, but of fear before powerful patrons. What was 'secular' was open to doubt and negotiation, both here and in empire-wide celebrations such as the Kalends of January; the boundary between the 'pagan' and the 'secular' can be located only with careful attention to the diversity of opinions about each particular rite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Augustine famously believed fallen human sex to be inescapably bound up with sinful lust. In every sexual act, lust embodies both the sin of the fall (prideful idolatry) and that sin's consequences. John C. Cavadini has extended Augustine's conception of lust to include domination, and even violence. This leaves us with a disturbing question: is sex without violence possible? Building upon Jean-Luc Marion's distinction between idol and icon, this paper locates a solution to the problem of lust in Augustine's conception of friendship. Identifying the beloved as an icon of God entails relating to the beloved without lustful domination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Augustine's rejection of pagan virtue in the City of God is often connected to his anti‐Pelagian works and so exaggerated. However, Augustine's actual account of pagan virtue, both in the City of God and Contra Julianum, is much more nuanced than is commonly recognized. Augustine connects true virtue to true religio, its end in the beatific vision, and the grace without which it is impossible, and consistently highlights the connection between virtue and worship. Nevertheless, the category of the pagan virtues, habits sufficient to promote the flourishing of Rome, is an important part of Augustinian virtue theory. Attending to the presence of pagan virtue in the City of God shines light on why Augustine repeatedly claims that his theology, and not that of Julian, is most opposed to Manichean claims. The City of God provides useful context for interpreting Augustine's theology of grace in the anti‐Pelagian works, and so avoiding an over exaggerated theology of the Fall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nicholas of Cusa read Augustine, like he read Dionysius the Areopagite, as teaching that God was best known and encountered in an understanding of one's own ignorance of ultimate reality (learned ignorance). Cusa's use of Augustine in Defense of Learned Ignorance, On the Vision of God, and On the Not-Other helps recover the importance of learned ignorance in Augustine's own writings. This study tracks learned ignorance as an essential mechanism of Augustine's pursuit of wisdom through his early writings, the Confessions, and the later anti-Pelagian treatises. Learned ignorance functioned as philosophical dialectic in his earliest treatises, a practice of prayer in the Confessions, and as both polemic and apophatic theodicy in his later writings. Augustine's shifting conceptualization of learned ignorance, in turn, helps recover how Cusa often preached learned ignorance as the humility of faith. Thus, Cusa's commitment to learned ignorance derived from both the Neoplatonic dilemma of knowing the unknowable and the Augustinian understanding of original sin as pride and redemption as humility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent, provocative essay ("Inheriting Wittgenstein's Augustine," New Blackfriars (February, 2018)), Philip Porter criticizes Augustine's habit of drawing analogies between the embodiment of concepts in language and the Incarnation of the Word as Jesus of Nazareth, suggesting that his distinctions encourage us to drive a wedge between God the Son and the human being, Jesus, whom he is. Porter worries that Augustine succumbs to the linguistic and then theological fantasy that we might peel away the word's flesh, to attain to the Word beneath. He proposes to dissolve this fantasy by way of a Wittgensteinian revision of Augustine's linguistic Christology, eschewing the distinction between the "verbum mentis" and the "verbum vocis," the better to safeguard the unity of Christ. In what follows, I suggest that while Augustine is indeed tempted toward Christological error by an inappropriate extension of the linguistic analogy, Porter's proposed corrective both neglects important resources from the developed Chalcedonian tradition, and has as its unhappy outcome that "God is robbed of his transcendence, and creation of its true gratuity." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article questions whether it is possible to derive natural laws from human sociability. It examines the work of Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas, and concludes that there are certain natural laws that can be derived from the social character of human beings. Some of these hold across all societies and at all times (semper et ad semper) whereas others hold only in general but are subject to exceptions (semper sed non ad semper). The article concludes by confronting an anti‐social and immoralist challenge to the idea of natural laws of sociability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to break the scholarly deadlock regarding attitudes toward war and bloodshed held by early Christian thinkers. I argue that, whereas previous studies have attempted to fit early Christian stances into one or another "unitary-ethic" framework, the historical-textual data can be best accounted for by positing that many early Christian writers held to a "dual-ethic" orientation. In the latter, certain actions would be viewed as forbidden for Christians but as legitimate for non-Christians in the Roman Empire. Moreover, this dual-ethic stance can be further illuminated by viewing it in connection with the portrayal in the Hebrew Bible of the relation between Levites and the other Israelite tribes. This framing enables us to gain a clearer understanding not only of writers like Origen and Tertullian, who upheld Christian nonviolence while simultaneously praising Roman imperial military activities, but also of writers such as Augustine, whose theological-ethical framework indicates a strong assumption of a dual-ethic stance in his patristic predecessors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Augustine's identification of the Stoic therapy of passions (apatheia) as moderation (metriopatheia) has long been a focus of controversy. This article examines the theoretical foundation for Augustine's comments on the relationship between apatheia and metriopatheia in the Stoic and the Peripatetic contexts, with particular focus on whether Augustine misrepresents his predecessors' doctrines. Based upon a critical examination of recent research and a systematic analysis of Augustine's position in various phases of his writing, this article argues for a dynamic scheme of the psychotherapy of passions in Augustine's late thought, in which he deliberately deviates from philosophical traditions by adopting new criteria to re-evaluate the quality of emotions from the perspective of theological anthropology. This dynamic theological vantage point contributes to Augustine's insight into passions as well as his new use of the philosophical terms in refuting the Stoic pride. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In De Trinitate 6.4, Augustine compares the inseparability of virtues within the human soul to the divine attributes within the simple divine substance of the Trinity. In this paper, I will suggest that this is more than a convenient analogy. Rather, I contend, the soul's virtues become inseparable as the soul itself conforms to the image of God through the primary virtue of love. My argument includes an analysis of the history of inseparable virtue in Graeco-Roman philosophy and a comparison of Augustine's use of the concept in Trin. 6.4 with his more extended treatment in Epistle 167. In the face of a seeming conflict in these two texts, I argue for a 'soft' or 'imperfect' version of inseparability in Augustine's view of the virtues. Finally, I suggest that the cultivation of the virtues within the unity of love may be understood as the way we come to image the Trinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Virtue is a good quality of the mind, by which one lives rightly, which no one uses badly, which God works in us without us.' Thomas Aquinas quotes this 'Augustinian' definition near the beginning of his treatment of virtue in general. Because it fails to apply to acquired virtues, some conclude that Aquinas presents this definition only to set it aside. Against such interpretations, I demonstrate that Thomas' use of the definition is the key to understanding the treatment of virtue at Summa I/2.55–63. First, I show why Thomas places the definition where he does, at the end of question 55. Second, I show that the definition is not peripheral but rather discloses the inner logic of his treatment of virtue. Finally, I show that for the reader who grasps this inner logic, the conclusion drawn explicitly at Question 65 – that only infused virtue is virtue simply – is revealing but not surprising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The parallel between Augustine's preoccupation with language and the ‘linguistic turn’ of the last century has made him a valuable figure in recent discussions on hermeneutics and meaning. Still, he has yet to be brought into serious conversation with contemporary narrative hermeneutics. In this essay, I contend that narrative hermeneutics provides a lens through which we can appreciate the important role narrative plays in Augustine's hermeneutics and, in particular, how it shapes his account of meaning. Rather than casting his perception of meaning as a static reality that lies completely beyond the text, recognising the place of narrative in his thought allows us to appreciate the dynamic and personal aspects of meaning which it produces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article makes a case for universal salvation based on the soteriology of Anselm of Canterbury's Cur Deus Homo. It argues that without an affirmation of universal salvation, Anselm's argument fails on the grounds of its own soteriological logic, which unites the fitting and the necessary for God, assumes the primary importance of divine aseity for understanding salvation history, and affirms the ontological unity of the human race as the object of God's redemptive love. Also detailed is the development of the relationship between mercy and justice in Anselm's thought from the Proslogion to Cur Deus Homo, and it is shown how Anselm's developed soteriology in the latter challenges major features of the Augustinianism he inherited. The article concludes that a robust theology of divine aseity like Anselm's will entail that creation be understood as a theatre for the manifestation of God's eternal love for his creatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A constant in Augustine's long literary career is his understanding of God's presence as ubique totus, or 'whole and everywhere'. I will first consider how Augustine came to perceive of the divine presence in this life (here I will look especially at the Confessions); second, how he theologically articulates the nature of the divine presence (here I will draw on Ep. 187), and, finally, how he understands the divine presence in the life to come (and here I will focus on the conclusion of the City of God). I suggest that a fundamental continuity obtains between how Augustine understands seeing God in this life and the next and that this continuity is predicated on his conception of the divine presence as ubique totus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The broad contours of Augustine's critique of Stoic virtue theory in De civitate dei 19.4 finds a fascinating analogue in Theodor Adorno's theory of immanent critique: Augustine ‘enters’ into Stoic virtue theory and criticises it from its own postulates, illustrating the striking implausibility of Stoic orthodoxy when lived out in concreto and the absurd, but logical, conclusions to which one is necessarily carried by Stoic ethics. Through this deconstruction, Augustine clears a space to propose his own virtue ethic. Augustine maintains that a Stoic virtue ethic fails to deliver on its promised eudaimonistic ends because it lacks a robust eschatological vision. For Augustine, the Christian faith offers a more viable virtue ethic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In his sermons, Answer to Faustus a Manichean, and other works, Augustine insisted that belief in Christ's resurrection establishes the identity and defines the faith of Christians. In justifying resurrection belief, he appealed to evidence from (1) created nature and (2) human history, and to (3) the desires and experiences of those he addressed. From the perspective of creation, 'the miracle' of the world and all the wonders it contains (particularly the worldly pattern of 'new life after death') support Easter faith. Historically, Augustine argues from a visible effect (almost the whole of Roman society accepting the resurrection) to the only adequate cause of this phenomenon (Christ's victory over death). Finally, the human hunger for happiness, Augustine argues, finds its fulfilment only through sharing in Christ's resurrection -- though in this context he does not forget the light provided by the Holy Spirit, through whom 'with the eyes of the heart we behold' the risen Christ (Sermon 263). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops an account of doctrine that seeks to reconceive the nature of doctrinal reference within the context of human transformation. It sets out from Augustine's advice to the preacher of the doctrine of predestination, discovering three layers of doctrinal interpretation, rooted in and geared towards transformation. Augustine's advice is applied generally to suggest that the role of doctrine is to ward off general classification in respect of God, making way for redemptive encounter with God. These insights generate a new perspective on the question of doctrinal reference that rules out both straightforward reference to God and straightforward denial of such reference. The article concludes by suggesting that one way through the resultant linguistic minefield would be to speak of ‘hyper-reference’ to God, with the intention of evoking the ‘more than’ of God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I explore the nature of Augustine's theological thinking. My thesis is that Augustine is an 'improvisational theologian,' meaning his theology begins from the place that an improvisational musician's thinking does: attunement. In order to prove this thesis, I have three sections. The first is an analysis of the type of thinking that takes place in improvisational music, showing how it is predicated upon an idea of attunement. Second, I explore the improvisational nature of Augustine's thought by seeing how attunement is also at work in his thinking. In order to do this, I show how he develops a musical worldview in De Musica and how this guides his subsequent thinking in De Doctrina Christiana and Confessions. I conclude by briefly pointing to different contemporary theological issues that this reading of Augustine can enrich. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The liturgy has often been a source of conflict within Christian communities. After comparing several recent exhortations by Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI concerning the importance of the unity of the Church, this essay examines resources for articulating an approach of 'liturgical irenicism' on the basis of texts from Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and the Magisterium of the Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a theological interpretation of Jean-Luc Marion that accents the importance of prayer as a remedy to conceptual idolatry. It also addresses theological concerns about Marion's understanding of the relationship between phenomenology and theology, and about his critical attitude toward ontology. In response to the first concern, it uses Marion's readings of Dionysius the Areopagite and Augustine to demonstrate that Marion prioritizes a prayerful approach to theology that transcends phenomenology, even while benefiting from it. In response to the second concern, it draws on Marion's treatments of Dionysius, Augustine, and Aquinas to show how the same prayerful theology accommodates an ontological way of praising God. Prayer is the key to both arguments. Prayer resists the conceptual idolatries operative in the realms of phenomenality and of being while revealing the potential iconicity of both. Finally, this article clarifies why Marion's recent Augustine book is crucial to an understanding of his project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John 3:13 presents a grammatical and theological problem for Augustine. If the only one who ascends to heaven is the one who descended, namely Christ, then what becomes of the Christian life of ascent? To unpack Augustine's solution to this problem, this article explores his use of John 3:13 in his anti-Donatist sermons of 406–7. Here Augustine uses the grammatical method of prosopological exegesis both to identify and to solve the problem of Christ's solo ascent. Prosopology asks of a text, ‘Who is speaking? To whom is he speaking? And about whom is he speaking?’ in order to parse the sometimes ambiguous personae within a dramatic scene. Through this method, Augustine affirms that Christ is indeed speaking about himself alone, but the reflexive subject of Christ includes the church who is his body. The Christian life of ascent to God requires that we become participants in the subject of Christ's ‘I’. Building on the work of ‘New Canon’ Augustine scholarship, I argue that this use of John 3:13 to espouse the unity of the church in the body of Christ is founded upon a pro-Nicene understanding of the revelatory and epistemological role of the Son. The ability of Christ fully to reveal the Father is a central tenet of Latin pro-Nicene refutations of homoian christologies, and this revelation of the Father's Word through Christ's incarnation is accomplished in our union with that Word through his body. Based on this pro-Nicene affirmation of epistemological salvation through Christ, Augustine then uses John 3:13 to condemn the Donatists for damning themselves by separating from the body of Christ. The oneness of the ecclesial body of Christ is predicated upon the oneness of Christ himself because it is into his complex subject that we are incorporated. Separation from that unity is separation from the singular grammatical subject who ascends as Christ to the Father. Thus, Augustine's grammatical practice of prosopological exegesis to solve the problem of John 3:13 connects the pro-Nicene affirmation of Christ's revelation of the Father to an anti-Donatist defence of the necessary unity of the church. This should encourage us to consider further the ways in which pro-Nicene principles help to shape Augustine's vision of the church. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents an argument that the theology of Saint Augustine should shape Christian values in modern Christianity. Topics include the Catholic teaching of Gaudium et spes, Augustine's teachings on balancing Christian morality with secular traditions, the Protestant Reformation, Calvinism, the Catholic Church, and the relation of human progress to the coming of the kingdom of God.

Thomas' Compendium was composed in imitation of Augustine's Enchiridion, and with the intention of correcting features which struck Thomas, as they have struck other readers, as strange. The treatment of faith was the principal focus of Thomas' discontent. In place of Augustine's wandering history of the engagement of divine goodness with the world, Thomas emphasised the cognitive aspect of faith and its concern with being. The two approaches differ in the extent to which they can allow a distinction of the cognitive from the voluntative in virtue. Augustine's insistence on keeping them together has definite strengths in resisting voluntarism, but Thomas' emphasis imposes constraints on the moralising reduction of faith to action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Augustine and Aquinas are points of reference in the so-called 'culture wars' about how Christianity should think of its relation to modern liberal culture. 'Postmodern Augustinian Thomists' (PATs) appeal to Augustine for their choice of a dialectical relation to liberalism, and those nicknamed 'Whig Thomists' are more ready to see an alignment between liberal democratic capitalism and Aquinas' view of politics. In this paper, some points relating to how Augustine thinks of 'the City of God' form the basis of a consideration of the way PATs argue for their position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various critics of the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) often highlight the lack of church tradition as one deficiency of the various interpretations of Paul. To some, the lack of church history automatically renders such newer interpretations suspect. In turn critics of the NPP often turn to the reformers such as Calvin and Luther to defend the traditional reading of Paul and trace this traditional reading back to Augustine. For the critics, church tradition stands on the side of the traditional reading.This article seeks to highlight an often neglected early church view on one aspect of the NPP, that of Paul and the Law. This article highlights one of the fiercest exchanges between two church fathers. Through a series of letters, Jerome and Augustine corresponded on Jerome's interpretation of Galatians 2 and the Antioch incident. For Augustine the pastor, nothing less than the veracity of scripture was at stake and Augustine mounts a defence of Paul's actions in Galatians 2 in response to Jerome's insistence of an agreed-upon lie between Peter and Paul. In the process of Augustine's rebuttal of Jerome, he notes that Paul followed the law without ‘pretence’ and that there was a period in early Christianity where Jewish Christians practised law observance. Augustine highlights the divine origin of the Mosaic law, which renders a positive role for the law in early Christianity, and notes that the negative critique of the law comes within the context of a Gentile audience, but did not have implications for Jewish Christians. Augustine rightly notices and raises the important context of Paul's negative statements on the law and offers a nuanced discussion of Paul's treatment of the law.Augustine notes some of the important conclusions drawn by the NPP, namely a positive view of the law and its practice by Paul and other Jewish Christians. He also notes the various ways the law functions in Jewish and Gentile contexts. Such a positive view of Paul and the law may appear striking to many, but must be considered by those who are otherwise critical of the NPP. This article shows that there was at least one voice, among others, within the early church which advocated for a positive reading of Paul and the law. The history of interpretation of Galatians 2 offers many insights for contemporary Pauline scholars which ought to be heeded in future discussions. This article, by highlighting the exchange between Jerome and Augustine, seeks to give the NPP a historical ‘rootedness’ and placement within the history of interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This is an impressive work. It is not a book just about Augustine's work ‘On the Trinity’, but on Augustine's trinitarian thought as a whole. It is a mature work, not written within a couple of months, but with years of thinking and rethinking. All this time has helped make the book what it is. I am pleased that it is a historical work, mainly for two reasons: (a) it sketches the development of Augustine's thought (this old model of German historical approach is always helpful), and (b) it places Augustine's trinitarian thought in a specific place in the history of theology. Of course, there are warnings in the Introduction that the book has neither the aim to offer a complete ‘history of Augustine's Trinitarian thought’ nor does it set out to be a monograph about the whole of De trinitate. In fact, the monograph starts with the early Augustine, sketching the ‘origins’ of his trinitarian thought, and the chapters about De trinitate intend to set out the fundamental lines of Augustine's thought in De trinitate. So I think we are allowed to read this book as a new approach to an old problem: how did Augustine's trinitarian thought develop into the mature form found in De trinitate? If we follow Ayres’ approach, three problems appear. I ask: (a) what about philosophy, (b) what about Manichaeism and (c) what kind of theology is regarded as the background to Augustine's trinitarian thought? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues that the Christian West's indebtedness to contractual logic in regard to marriage, as canonically depicted in 1 Corinthians 7, has resulted in a corresponding theological and pastoral myopia. The weakness of this reliance, as seen paradigmatically in Augustine's theology of marriage, consists in its articulation of marriage's constitution apart from any meaningful reference to the particular dynamics of any given marital common life. ‘Marriage’, in this sense, remains extrinsic to the living of marriage. Augustine doubly solidifies this separation by construing marriage as a contractually negotiated site for the sinful, though forgivable, expression of sexual desire, which he then roots in a christological account of sacrament whereby the sacramental bond of marriage can never be broken regardless of the lived particularities of marital life. A promising corrective can be found by way of a theological retrieval of a minor set of images suggestively employed in passages such as Ephesians 5:21–33 and Revelation 19:7–9 rooted in cultic themes such as sacrifice and consecration, which Augustine employs in describing marriage's preferred ecclesial alternative: the consecration of virginity. The constructive result is a theology of marriage in which every moment of marital life is marked by the ambivalence of vulnerably and ‘deathly’ surrendering to one another, which is pre-eminently embodied in the surrender of Christ himself upon the cross to the one he called Father. This ambivalence is characterised by the dual possibility, inherent in the posture of surrender itself, in which the result can either bear the healing fruits of love and reciprocal embrace or the tragic inhumanity of abuse, rejection and manipulation. Finally, the sacrificial and contractual elements of marriage might be ultimately reconciled in a refigured notion of ‘covenant’, which too often has been understood simply as a synonym for ‘contract’. Instead, a proper covenantal understanding of marriage emerges as a participatory analogy to the entire, complicated and contingent history of God, with God's people marked by seemingly endless cycles of sin, repentance, forgiveness and restoration. Intriguingly, this history was also founded within a temporal space outlined by a mix of contractual elements and cultic regulations. Likewise, the covenantal founding of a marriage mirrors a similar dynamic: the initial ‘contractual’ vows speak into existence a temporalised space within which a daily, mundane life of love might come to pass and bear its fruits, in due time, by God's grace and the daily improvisations of love and sacrifice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent moral justifications of military intervention in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq have drawn upon just war concepts set out by Augustine of Hippo in the early fifth century. Augustine, writing as the political hegemony of the Roman Empire was ebbing away, provides a valuable touchstone for anyone engaged in analysing the complex interplay of power, war, morality and religious faith. Like most of the problems Augustine addressed in his writings, his attitude to just war was rooted in a potent mix of imperial politics, concern for individual souls and establishing and defending church orthodoxy. Though his personal telos was to be found in the Heavenly City, Augustine did not try to avoid the difficulties of dealing with the contradictions involved in the Christian's encounter with the decidedly ungodly Earthly City. Though he never ruled out the need for political power to be wielded through the medium of martial force, Augustine would only accede to such action with great reluctance. This article investigates aspects of the use and misuse of Augustine and his ideas in both the political and academic arenas in the justification of recent military interventions. Analysis of statements made by the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the book Just War Against Terror by American political theorist Jean Bethke Elshtain will show how Augustinian concepts have been used selectively to serve broader political agendas. Blair and Elshtain have been chosen for this study because they were both, in their respective fields, influential figures who advocated the 2003 invasion of Iraq; they are both declared Christians; Elshtain has explicitly associated herself with Blair's approach; and they both rejected any notion of religious crusade in the aforementioned interventions. By considering casus belli which included self-defence, opposing evil and liberating the oppressed, this article will demonstrate that the selective use of Augustine would eventually weaken the very case it was meant to strengthen. In the process, commonalities and discontinuities between Augustine's ideas in their original context and their application in the present will be highlighted. The article concludes that, in the process of using Augustinian concepts to justify recent military action, his renowned reticence regarding the use of force was undermined. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After many years of dormancy, the concept of kenosis has recently received widespread and lively attention from contemporary theologians. Yet, in the midst of this revival, there has emerged a steady stream of critique of the concept because of its apparently adverse doctrinal and ethical implications. Less remarked upon, but equally important, is an analogous and long-standing debate about the nature and pervasiveness that we should assign to humility in Christian teaching. Indeed, the interweaving of humility and kenosis in Philippians 2 arguably requires that the two rise or fall together; even if the concepts are not semantically equal, their meanings and their theological implications overlap in manifold and important ways. This article surveys the current state of the question, and argues that the works of Augustine yield valuable insights regarding the most knotty problems emerging from contemporary disputes about kenosis and humility. In the first part, I outline several recent perspectives on kenosis, aiming to bring clarity to the discussion. Along the way, I note the similarities between kenosis and humility as they function theologically, and I offer a summary of the qualities that a theologically sound account of those concepts would need to exhibit in order to address the valid concerns which have so far been raised. In the second part, I propose that closer attention to the theme of humility (both human and divine) may shed new and important light on kenosis debates, suggesting that Augustine is the ideal theologian on whom to test this theory. To this end, I explore Augustine's explanations of christology and language, suggesting that these are the loci through which Augustine's perspective on humility – both divine and human – is best expressed. In both cases, Augustinian humility strikes a noteworthy balance between restraint and empowerment and offers an instructive vantage point from which to address the complex and lively discussions about kenosis. While the African bishop may not offer a decisive resolution of these matters, his approach to them does hold significant promise for a depiction of humility and kenosis which incorporates the valid concerns of critics while simultaneously preserving an unavoidable and central aspect of Christian doctrine. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, I argue that at the root of the 'ontological' argument lies the notion that the idea of God is truth: in the idea of God, the meaning of the concept and the reality of the Being actually converge; the idea of God is God. After looking at a number of thinkers whose philosophical method is reminiscent of Anselm's I conclude that, while Anselm did not furnish a conclusive proof of the necessary existence of God, his argument shows how the question of the existence of God is one and the same with the question of the intelligibility and coherence of God and with the question of the intelligibility and coherence of reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I am grateful to John Perry for his deft and illuminating review, which nudges in productive ways at the unity and shape of the story I have told in Putting on Virtue. In brief, Perry reads my book as a defence of Christian eudaimonism against charges of hypocrisy. He judges the defence to be a success, but suggests that I am conflating two distinct issues, only one of which is helpfully construed as hypocrisy. As a result of this conflation, I end up including topics and thinkers which don't properly belong under the same umbrella, and failing to do justice to those that do. I overlook the significance of the journey metaphor for Augustine's construal of pagan virtue, and so miss some of his most valuable resources for coming to terms with the character of all virtue in via. Furthermore, while Luther might appear to be the villain of my narrative, Perry argues that in fact he hardly deserves a place in it. Luther's rejection of eudaimonism is so complete that he doesn't really contribute at all to an ongoing conversation about it; his real concern is justification, with an unfortunate spillover into the foreign territory of ethics. It is Hume, Perry proposes, who is the proper villain, undermining the eudaemonist tradition by unashamedly setting aside the task of differentiating objective goods from subjective goods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of Alasdair MacIntyre's colleagues at Notre Dame once told me that of all the passages in all his books, there is one of which MacIntyre is most proud. It is found, of course, in After Virtue: Consider the example of a highly intelligent seven-year-old child whom I wish to teach to play chess, although the child has no particular desire to learn the game. The child does however have a very strong desire for candy and little chance of obtaining it . . . [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While there is a tradition in western religious thought of 'contemptus mundi'-hating the world-there is also a tradition of loving the world. Figures as diverse as Augustine, Nietzsche, and Freud have queried whether and how we can love the world: how we can enjoy it for its value. Whereas Nietzsche and Freud thought that a Christian theistic framework prevented us from loving the world, a close reading of Augustine's Confessions shows that this is not true, at least in one sense. For Augustine, this article tries to show, theorizes how it is precisely within a Christian theistic framework that we can love the world most deeply and take the most delight in the world. This vision of Augustine's is not without its own challenges, but it offers at the least a significant 'response' to claims by those like Nietzsche and Freud who believe that Christian theism and loving the world are irreconcilable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this essay is to bring the philosophical theology of St Augustine, and in particular his anthropology, into fuller dialogue with contemporary psychology, and to examine how psychology and theology might benefit from such an engagement. A further aim is to show that intra-psychic accounts of Augustine's Confessions are insufficient on cultural-psychological, philosophical and theological grounds. To the extent that the modern concept of ‘pure nature’ is incompatible with Augustine's philosophical theology, attempts to develop naturalistic intra-individual, psychological accounts of spiritual change will necessarily be limited once the full ‘ecstatic’ orientation of human existence is factored out. The picture of the person that emerges from naturalistic accounts of any mystical theologian may be plausible within the framework of a classical modern, post Cartesian concept of scientific rationality, and potentially useful for some purposes, but it will be over simplified and never wholly sufficient to account for the potentialities of human existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Zizioulas is not only a prolific writer but arguably one of the most original and influential Orthodox scholars of our present time. His originality can be most clearly observed in his development of a personal and relational ontology. Central to this approach is his assertion that the Father as cause should be understood as the one God rather than the divine ousia. Zizioulas subsequently asserts that the divine ousia should be understood in terms of divine communion. While this approach might be original, it is not without its difficulties, not least the possible implication that there are two different Gods. It is our contention that this problem arises out of a failure by Zizioulas to adequately distinguish between two distinct types of divine unity particularly located in the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers. The first is located solely in the ousia and ensures the ontological oneness of God, the second may be observed in the relational role of the Father as a point of reference for the Son and the Spirit. Finally, although these two forms of unity are identified by the Cappadocians we will suggest that the second is more adequately located with the Spirit by Augustine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a study of how Augustine's ethics of belief shaped his arguments against unbelief and its legacy in using coercion to settle disputes. After considering the arguments for belief presented by Augustine, the article studies how these were shaped by his understanding of the problem of evil and how the Fall influenced free will. What is noted to be of benefit in Augustine is that he offers arguments in favor of belief, and is convinced that he has shown unbelief to be based on unsound reasoning. By way of contrast, a number of theologians (such as Tertullian, John Calvin, and those under the heading of Reformed Epistemology) are considered who do not believe that arguments are necessary to support belief or reject unbelief. These are contrasted with Augustine and it is argued that they have significant shortcomings in this respect. However, the article concludes that Augustine could have gone farther in supporting the claim that it is clear that God exists, and his own shortcomings have been used to justify coercion in religious belief. If common ground is to be achieved this problem must be corrected and an adequate foundation for clarity must be established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Augustine's text of the Gospel according to John to trace the process by which he adopted Jerome's revision of the Gospels. An important feature is the distinction between 'primary citations' taken from a codex and 'secondary citations' likely to have been made from memory, which change affiliation at different rates. Augustine's progress from Old Latin to Vulgate text-types is illustrated by the comparison of selected passages with surviving manuscripts. Textual variants in these citations suggest that Augustine's biblical text has been transmitted accurately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing several major lines of argument, I claim that Augustine exhibits styles of thought, literary methods and modes of inquiry that are not only accessible to feminist scholarship, but that are genuinely feminist-friendly. I first examine the Confessions, and then proceed with analyses of Augustine's style, a comparison of his work to that of another major thinker in the Christian tradition, an analysis of his use of the notion of unity, and a final look at City of God. The work of commentators such as Chadwick, Clark, McMahon and Mallard is used in order to support the argument. Augustine's standing as one of the founding Church Fathers may make it difficult for us to mention him in the same breath as the concept of “feminism.”1 Yet in our attempts to try to come to grips with thinkers as diverse as Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Quine, we have frequently noticed that concepts useful to feminists are where one finds them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]