Customer Reviews

Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia

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`Augustine through the Ages' is one of those big, thick, $100 books that one longs to have in a private library (particularly the private library of someone with a catholic-leaning theological interest). I debated about the book for nearly a year until a friend of mine finally put the issue to rest by getting it for me for my birthday a few years ago.

I've now had sufficient time and use of the volume to warrant giving an opinion. I am sorry that I waited so long to add this book to my collection!

` "Augustine through the Ages" presents anew the life, work, and influence of Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430), one of the greatest figures in the history of the Christian church. Best known to modern readers for his "Confessions" and "City of God," Augustine has had a profound theological and philosophical impact on the Christian faith, and his legacy is also reflected in the development of Western thought as a whole.'

This book is organised and functions as an encyclopedia. Over 150 scholars in fields such as history, classics, theology, philosophy and political science have contributed to making this a very comprehensive and in-depth reference work. The contents include nearly 500 articles with appropriate bibliographic references for further research.

Entries involve his life, his work, and his influence. A few samples will illustrate:

His life: Life, Culture and Controversies
In this entry, a brief biography of Augustine is present, from birth in Thagaste in 354, in the province of Numidia, to his death in 430 in Hippo, as it was under siege from Vandal invaders. It details the major events and influences in his life, as well as the general cultural milieu of the time - education under the Roman system, the relationship of church and empire, and the influence of philosophy, particularly Neoplatonism. The controversies of his time, in which Augustine energetically participated, included the Arian, Donatist, Pelagian and Manichean trends.

His work: Confessions
This entry gives an overview of the `Confessions', the most popular and widely-read of Augustine for twentieth-century audiences. As a result of this autobiographical work, the youth of Augustine is far better known than almost any other person in antiquity. The article includes translation and publication issues (the question about oral or written primacy is explored), as are the differing purposes of sections (autobiographical, polemical, exegetical). This work covers conversion and growth in faith and work.

His influence
Articles are included on those who influenced Augustine himself, such as Origen, Tertullian, Plotinus, and Plato, as well as upon those he influenced, from early figures such as Jerome and Ambrose, to later theologians like Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin, up to more modern figures such as Adolf von Harnack, Ernst Troeltsch, and Martin Heidegger. Similarly, Augustine's contributions toward topics that are of current (and recurring) interest such as social justice, war, suicide, contraception, etc. are explored.

The book also includes tables Augustine's works which show Latin titles, English translations, common abbreviations (very necessary for scholarship) and dates. Articles are cross-references, particularly with a view toward shared bibliographic information.

The editor, Allan D. Fitzgerald is professor of patristics at the Augustinian Patristic Institute of Rome. He also is editor of Augustinian Studies published by Villanova University. Jaroslav Pelikan offers a word at the front, which is an interesting choice, given Pelikan's Eastern Orthodox leanings, and the strained love-hate relationship Eastern Orthodoxy has traditionally had with Augustine.

This is a truly monumental work that will find an honoured place in the library of any scholar.

AUGUSTINE THROUGH THE AGES is an enormously informative work on the life and thought of Augustine of Hippo. Every serious student of Augustine would benefit from having this volume. Allow me to enumerate three reasons why this encyclopedia is so valuable in helping people to understand Augustine and his extraordinary contribution both to the history of Christianity and to the intellectual development of the Western world:

1. This work contains hundreds of articles by the best Augustine scholars from both the Catholic and Protestant ranks. The result is that you can fairly evaluate Augustine's contribution to the history of Western Christianity. For example, this volume contains insightful articles on how Augustine's thought influenced the development of the Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed theological traditions in particular.

2. Because Augustine wrote more than five million words, it is often difficult to pull together his various treatments of issues and to attempt to summarize his overall position. This encyclopedia is quite helpful in systematizing the various categories of Augustine's thought.

3. This work includes articles which address all areas of Augustine's thought, including biblical, theological, philosophical, ethical, historical, and his many literary works.

AUGUSTINE THROUGH THE AGES contains more than 900 pages that attempt to capture the life, thought, controversies, and literary output of one of Christianity's greatest thinkers. This is indeed an extremely valuable volume.

. . .which will be of value to Augustine scholars for many years to come.

The purpose of the encyclopedia is to provide a one-volume reference to Augustine, his life, his thought, his teachings, and his books. What did he believe about a particular doctrine? Look up the doctrine, get a synopsis of his thought, and find the appropriate reference(s) in his writings.

Wonderful for both Catholics and Protestants, esp. those branches of Protestantism which revere Augustine. Applicable for the layman or the cleric; for the serious student as well as for someone who simply wishes to be informed.

I highly recommend this volume.

I agree with the other reviewers who have given this book high marks. For those working with Augustine at the scholarly level, this is an excellent resource for getting a sense of Augustinian thought on many (perhaps all) core topics one may be exploring. Appropriately self-described as an encyclopedia, it is not by any means an exhaustive resource on any topic, but it provides a jumping-off point for further exploration. The articles will direct the reader directly to relevant writings by Augustine himself.

If, on the other hand, you are looking for an overview of the life of Augustine - or, perhaps, the ways in which his thought developed through the years - you would probably be better served by Brown's classic biography Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (New Edition, with an Epilogue). Brown's biography, purchased along with Augustine Through the Ages, would provide a strong resource for those wanting to read ABOUT Augustinian thought.

Of course, to get to the real meat of Augustine, you need to actually read his works yourself. Augustine's writings themselves are available from many sources (including free versions on the internet), but I would suggest you steer toward formal editions with strong introductions by Augustinian scholars. The "Fathers of the Church" series is excellent in that regard. Two relevant editions are Four Anti-Pelagian Writings (Fathers of the Church) (which Amazon seems to indicate is out of print, although I am looking at a brand-new copy as I write this), and Saint Augustine on Genesis: Two Books on Genesis Against the Manichees and on the Literal Interpretation of Genesis : An Unfinished Book (The Fathers of the Church, 84).

It was helpful to get an overview of each topic that Augustine wrote and thought about. Though expansive in topics it is not deep in many topics. Some of the articles were not very helpful. Overall, many topics were quite helpful and it is worth the money spent for an excellent resource.

This is a remarkable collection of more than four hundred essays of varying lengths by nearly one hundred and fifty scholars.

Most of the entries contain useful bibliographies citing ancient and modern literature. Since Augustine's speculation is important for both Roman Catholics and Protestants, this authoritative collection should be useful for Latter-day Saints, and readers in general, seeking to understand both strands of Christian theology and the disagreements between them.

There are valuable essays in this collection setting out the influence Augustine's writings had on various later authors and movements, both Roman Catholic and otherwise, including Luther and the Reformed tradition. There are also essays on such topics as "Deification, Divinization" and "Nature."

Through the ages, Christians struggling to account for what God does for human beings through Jesus Christ came to contrast what one might become by realizing one's own nature with what one might become with gifts bestowed by God that could result in theosis. Originally nature and grace were contrasted. This helps to explain why one discovers that the Latin natura, with its cognates, appears "over five thousand times in Augustine's works" (p. 586). One can also be reminded that "natura, essentia, ousia, and substantia denote the same thing" for Augustine (p. 586). And one can also discover that, while "Augustine forcefully distinguishes between nature and grace," "the first use of the word 'supernatural' occurs in Greek and actually postdates Augustine by some one hundred and fifty years" (p. 586).

Augustine did not, as we now do, distinguish the natural from the supernatural. We now no longer tend to see nature and grace as correlates but follow a later unfortunate theological accretion in which a quite different distinction is made between the natural and supernatural, a distinction unknown in our scriptures but common in contemporary loose discourse. This little-known fact should illustrate the kinds of information packed into this wonderful reference tool.

Having read info on this title my expectations were fairly high. My library not having a dedicated book on Augustine was lacking. It still is! This might be an OK purchase as a shelf companion to MANY other volumes on this topic. As a stand-alone I think not. Promises of books for further study in the bibliographies after each topic is largely a joke. Take 'predestination' for instance - not too many English titles here. Why? One suspects to hide the commercial 'scholarship' of the click, paste and rehash Eerdman editorial style of publishing. Take how Theisson's 'Lectures in Systematic Theology' revised by Doerksen as an example where Thiessen's work was adulterated to accommodate a broad theological market. For those familiar with Eerdmans editorial books (This claims to be an Encycleopedia !?!) the tradition continues. If you've got lots of Augustine books on your shelf, this book may help to tie up loose ends. However, a back cover reviewer correctly says about this book, 'the starting point for further research.' I agree as this sums up the depth of this book - pity about the bibliography though as mentioned above. (Yes, I admit I expect to see Latin references and the like.)
If this is your first book on the topic, you may be better off considering other titles. For all what the book claims to be - a lightweight. Certainly I shall keep it as a reference, but I would not have purchased it given the opportunity to browse first.