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  • Rethinking Augustine's Early Theology: An Argument for Continuity
  • Chad Tyler Gerber
Carol Harrison Rethinking Augustine's Early Theology: An Argument for Continuity New York: Oxford University Press, 2006 Pp. viii + 269. $99.

At the turn of the twentieth century, debate raged among Augustine scholars over the nature of their subject's conversion in the year 386. Did Augustine convert to Catholic Christianity as narrated in Confessions VII–VIII, or did he actually embrace a species of Neoplatonism and years afterward render the narrative more theologically orthodox in his quasi-autobiography? In time the latter interpretation was soundly defeated. Carol Harrison suggests that the spirit of this perspective, however, lives on in the scholarly consensus that Augustine's anthropology and soteriology are naïvely confident and philosophically determined until his study of the Pauline epistles in the mid-390's. In Rethinking Augustine's Early Theology she seeks to exorcize this lingering spirit by demonstrating that the central tenets of Augustine's so-called mature theology of the mid-390's onward are already present in the writings of the 380's and early 390's.

Harrison begins by adumbrating the nearly "canonical" perspective on the development of Augustine's theology––what might be called the "revolution of 396" thesis. In the first decade after his baptism Augustine is widely believed to have forwarded a theology that is roughly congruent with the theology of his later adversary, Pelagius. Accordingly, he was optimistic about the unaided power of the will to choose the good or ascent to faith, had no concept of original sin, and viewed divine grace as solely an external force. Most scholars further maintain that Augustine's views were drastically altered in the mid-390's, principally through his correspondence with Simplicianus on Romans 7 and 9 (Ad Simplicianum). Hence the concepts which have come to define Augustine's anthropology and soteriology were born, namely original sin, the impotence of the fallen will, divine grace as an internal and efficacious operation, and predestination as an entirely non-contingent decree of God.

Harrison indirectly weakens the "revolution of 396" thesis in chapters 2–5 by uncovering other "mature" aspects of Augustine's writings. In chapter 2 she argues for the veracity of the conversion narrative in Confessions VII (circa 400) by demonstrating its "substantial" harmony with the two succinct accounts penned from Cassiciacum in 386. The demonstration goes a long way in refuting the aforementioned interpretation of Augustine's conversion (i.e. that it was actually to Neoplatonism alone) but contributes little to her refutation of the dominant interpretation concerning Augustine's early anthropology and soteriology. In the following two chapters, Harrison takes a small step closer to this task by beginning an examination of the theology of Augustine's earliest treatises. She contends in chapter 3 that from 386 onwards Augustine employs the intellectual anagogy he appropriated from the libri platonicorum within a conceptual framework that is distinctly Christian. Her argument convincingly establishes the authoritative primacy of Christian doctrine over Neoplatonism in the early writings as well as highlights Augustine's ability to integrate his two sources at such an early stage. [End Page 120] The author next (chapter 4) illustrates the presence of a theology of creation ex nihilo in the early writings and claims that the themes of human frailty and divine grace are implicit within it, particularly in the concept that creation is inherently unstable given its source (i.e., things tend toward the nothingness from which they originated) and the notion that God ontologically sustains all things (i.e., prevents them from returning to nothingness).

In chapter five Harrison offers a protracted analysis of Augustine's engagement with the Pauline corpus. She demonstrates that Augustine had read the apostle's works before, during, and after the events of 386, and furthermore claims that Augustine had already adopted the theological principles commonly associated with his readings in 396, especially the notions that faith and election are wholly the work of God. This claim requires Harrison to account for Augustine's theology in his commentaries on Galatians and Romans (394–396). Here Augustine suggests both that the initial movement of faith (initium fidei) is...

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