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articles
1. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 2
Fr. Allan D. Fitzgerald, O.S.A., Jonathan P. Yates, Ph.D. A Letter from the Editors
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2. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 2
Eugene R. Schlesinger The Sacrificial Ecclesiology of City of God 10
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In book 10 of City of God, Augustine appeals to the notion of true sacrifice in order to counteract the attraction of pagan worship. This appeal to the concept of sacrifice gives a distinct shape to the Christology and ecclesiology he develops in this book. Set against this polemical horizon, and within the context of his wider thought, it becomes clear that sacrifice is itself soteriological motif for Augustine. The work it does in this context is to serve as another way of describing the return of humanity to God through the Incarnate Christ. The cross, the Eucharist, the moral life, and the church itself are all identified as instances of the one true sacrifice of Christ. In this way, sacrifice provides an integrative motif for discussing Augustinian Christology, ecclesiology, sacramental theology, and soteriology.
3. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 2
James K. Lee Babylon Becomes Jerusalem: The Transformation of the Two Cities in Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos
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This study draws attention to an overlooked dimension of Augustine’s doctrine of the two cities in Enarrationes in Psalmos, wherein the earthly city is transformed into the heavenly city during the present age. In contrast to scholarship that overemphasizes the eschatological aspect of the two cities at the expense of the church’s transformation, this study demonstrates how Augustine’s doctrine is not limited to an eschatological grammar of separation, but employs the figure of the two cities in order to develop an ecclesiology of transformation. For Augustine, the church is built up as the city of God on pilgrimage, precisely by the celebration of the sacraments. A one-sided analysis that focuses solely upon separation from an eschatological perspective neglects the richness of Augustine’s teaching on the transformation of the earthly city of Babylon into the heavenly city of Jerusalem.
4. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 2
James F. Patterson Augustine’s Fig Tree (Confessiones 8.12.28)
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This article simultaneously expands and refines the interpretive space within which we understand Augustine’s statement that he lay down under a fig tree when he converted to Christianity in 386 (conf. 8.12.28). It rejects the claim that this fig tree is a reference to Nathanael’s fig tree at John 1:48 on both philological and contextual grounds. Nathanael is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit (John 1:47), but this is inconsistent with the Augustine whose life is narrated in conf. 1–8. Instead, Augustine’s fig tree is best interpreted in the context of the fig leaves of Gen. 3:7, the withered fig tree of Matt. 21:18–22 and Mark 11:12–14 and 20–25, and the good and bad trees of Matt. 7:15–20 and Luke 6:43–45. Together, these biblical passages indicate that the Augustine who lay down under the fig tree was still a liar by profession and deceived in his philosophical beliefs. Thus, his departure from the tree is symbolic of his conversion from the mendacious life he once led as a Manichee and rhetorician.
5. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 2
Sarah Stewart-Kroeker World-Weariness and Augustine’s Eschatological Ordering of Emotions in enarratio in Psalmum 36
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Augustine’s homiletical exhortations display a strong eschatological emphasis in his approach to cultivating rightly ordered emotions. According to critics such as Hannah Arendt, Martha Nussbaum, and Thomas Dixon, this orientation risks denigrating the earthly life and its attendant emotions, while also promoting a crippling resignation to suffering. This article discusses Augustine’s eschatological frame for ordering the emotions through a focused treatment of en. Ps. 36 (particularly the first homily) in conversation with Nussbaum’s critique in particular. In en. Ps. 36.1, Augustine deploys eschatological rhetoric to discourage the believer’s envious response to a prosperous, profligate neighbor. This entails disposing the believer in weariness toward life’s temporal disparities and exhorting the believer to work in love to alleviate suffering with a view to heavenly flourishing. In this sense, a disposition of “world-weariness” works in concert with eschatological hope to rightly order both emotion and action in this present world.
book reviews and books received
6. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 2
Adam Ployd Matthew W. Bates, The Birth of the Trinity: Jesus, God, and Spirit in New Testament and Early Christian Interpretations of the Old Testament
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7. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 2
J. Aaron Simmons John D. Caputo, Hoping Against Hope (Confessions of a Postmodern Pilgrim)
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8. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 2
Allan Fitzgerald, O.S.A. Mark F. M. Clavier, Eloquent Wisdom: Rhetoric, Cosmology and Delight in the Theology of Augustine of Hippo
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9. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 2
Phillip W. Schoenberg Ryan Coyne, Heidegger’s Confessions: The Remains of Saint Augustine in Being and Time and Beyond
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10. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 2
Bernard G. Prusak Frederick J. Crosson, Ten Philosophical Essays in the Christian Tradition
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11. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 2
Michael Minch Teresa Delgado, John Doody, and Kim Paffenroth, eds., Augustine and Social Justice
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12. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 2
Joseph Lenow Paul Rigby, The Theology of Augustine’s Confessions
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13. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 2
Kevin L. Hughes James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit
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14. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 2
Karen Kilby Susannah Ticciati, A New Apophaticism: Augustine and the Redemption of Signs
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15. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 2
Books Received
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articles
16. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
M. Burcht Pranger Inside Augustine
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This article, which is an adaptation of a lecture delivered at Villanova University in the Fall of 2015, proposes a reading of Augustine’s Confessions (conf.) with the assistance of the notions of absorption and theatricality. The very use of those notions is meant to counterbalance the readings generated by our overfamiliarity with Augustinian interiority. By replacing interiority with a concept that, heretofore, is alien to the Augustinian vocabulary, it becomes possible to block facile access to mystical interpretations of conf. on the one hand, and to embark upon the (admittedly challenging) task of reassessing the nature of “confessing” on the other. This new reading demonstrates the difficulties involved in approaching the confessor fully involved in his act of sustained confessing. A comparison is also made with the notion of absorption in the visual arts. Just as spectatordom becomes problematic vis-à-vis a painting whose personae look inward rather than outward, so too the position of the reader vis-à-vis a text whose confessing creator uninterruptedly addresses his Confessee demands a redefinition of the reader’s role and place in the process.
17. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Brian J. Matz Augustine in the Predestination Controversy of the Ninth Century: Part II: The Single Predestinarians John Scotus Eriugena and Hincmar of Rheims
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A debate over whether God predestines some to reprobation broke out in the ninth century. No one actually taught this view, but both John Scotus Eriugena and Hincmar of Rheims, among other churchmen at the time, presumed it to be the view of those who referred to themselves as “double predestinarians.” In part, this was because the double predestinarians had made much of Augustine’s phrase “predestined to punishment,” a phrase that can in fact be found in several of his writings. This article, which is the second of two parts (for Part I, see AugStud 46, no. 2: 155–184), argues that Eriugena and Hincmar had difficulty avoiding the appearance of disagreeing entirely with Augustine’s use of that phrase. Eriugena said the phrase is to be understood a contrario to the divine nature; Hincmar said it is to be understood in a generic sense about God’s judgment on sin. Of the two, Hincmar came the closest to acknowledging that Augustine might have erred in using the phrase as he did.
18. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Gregory W. Lee Using the Earthly City: Ecclesiology, Political Activity, and Religious Coercion in Augustine
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Augustine’s political theology is characterized by two apparently contradictory impulses: his harsh moral critique of non-Christian political communities, and his approbation of Christian participation in these communities. I argue that Augustine’s ecclesiology illuminates the coherence of his thought on these matters. Augustine’s assertion against the Donatists that Christians do not contract guilt from ecclesial fellowship with sinners reflects his larger vision of the relation between the earthly and heavenly cities. Association with sinners is no more avoidable in the civic sphere than in the ecclesial, and the vicious character of non-Christian political orders does not taint Christians who participate in them. Indeed, Christian rulers exercise authority over the earthly city faithfully when they direct their civic authority toward heavenly ends. This perspective funds Augustine’s defense of religious coercion. Since the Christian ruler ultimately belongs to the heavenly and not the earthly city, he should use his earthly power to enforce church unity according to ecclesial and not civic duty.
19. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Brian Gronewoller God the Author: Augustine’s Early Incorporation of the Rhetorical Concept of Oeconomia into his Scriptural Hermeneutic
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In the past two decades scholars such as Robert Dodaro, Kathy Eden, and Michael Cameron have called attention to the influence that Augustine’s rhetorical education had on his scriptural hermeneutic. Recently, M. Cameron (2010) has argued that Augustine began to incorporate the rhetorical concept of oeconomia into his scriptural hermeneutic during his time in Milan. This article expands on Cameron’s work by establishing that Augustine had in fact incorporated rhetorical oeconomia into his scriptural hermeneutic by 387 / 8 C.E. through a focused reading of two texts from De moribus ecclesiae (mor.). This reading demonstrates that the terminology and logic that Augustine employs to argue for the unity of the Christian scriptures in mor. 1.17.30 and 1.28.56 mirror the terminology and logic of the Latin rhetorical tradition, revealing that Augustine uses the phrases mirifica dispositio (1.17.30) and admirabilis ordo (1.28.56) to represent the same concept that Quintilian had referred to with the phrase oeconomica dispositio (Institutio Oratoria 7.10.11).
book reviews and books received
20. Augustinian Studies: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Benjamin P. Winter Gillian Clark, Monica: An Ordinary Saint
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