Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma, Vol. 2: Making a “Catholic” Self, 388–401 C.E. by Jason David BeDuhn (review)

This volume, the second in Jason David BeDuhn’s projected trilogy, surpasses the excellence of the first volume, which was enlightening and fascinating. In the past century scholars such as Paul Henry and Robert O’Connell rightly emphasized the influence of Plotinus on the thought of St. Augustine, especially in his earlier works. Manichaeism, on the other hand, was often regarded simply as a very odd form of Christianity that had little or no positive influence on the thought of Augustine. Although in many works he vigorously opposed the dualistic metaphysics of the followers of Mani, it has baffled students of Augustine how he could have remained a Hearer among the Manichees for at least nine years. More recent discoveries and scholarship have deepened our awareness of the Manichaean religion and have allowed us to see ways in which it positively influenced Augustine.

In the present volume BeDuhn clearly shows that Manichaean Christianity had a profound influence upon Augustine’s thinking, especially on the human will and the need for grace, during the years from his conversion up to 401 and the writing of the Confessions. In speaking about the “making of a ‘Catholic’ self,” BeDuhn clearly holds that Augustine’s thought and Augustine himself developed from the time of his baptism through the first years of his episcopacy. In On the True Religion Augustine held an almost complete compatibility between Platonic philosophy and Christianity so that the Platonists would have had to change only a few words and ideas to become Christians. The debate with the Manichaean Fortunatus in 392 “changed Augustine forever, although at the time he scarcely recognized it” (p. 122), as BeDuhn argues persuasively. Fortunatus appealed to texts from St. Paul’s Letters to the Galatians and to the Romans on which Augustine was “outdone exegetically in the debate” (p. 146), although Augustine, in becoming a Catholic Christian, had committed himself to accept the truth of the both the Old and the New Testament scriptures. BeDuhn argues that “Augustine’s sudden and intense interest in Paul after 392” (p. 192) is most plausibly explained as a result of Fortunatus’s use of Paul in support of Manichaean doctrine. BeDuhn guides his readers through Augustine’s anti-Manichaean works, showing how in response to his reading of Paul he came in the final book of On Free Choice to a quite different understanding of human freedom than he had in the first book that was written almost a decade earlier.

When Augustine’s bishop, Valerius, wanted him consecrated bishop in 394– 95, Megalius, bishop of Calama, protested and accused Augustine of still being a Manichaean so that some among the African bishops objected to Augustine’s elevation to the episcopacy, and Augustine had to defend his Catholicity. Augustine was known in Africa mainly as a convert from the Manichaeism he embraced for many years in Africa. BeDuhn suggests that a draft of books 5 to 9 of the Confessions was originally Augustine’s confession of faith in his own defense before the bishops. He goes on to argue persuasively that the final edition of the work was in a large part directed to the Manichees and especially to those whom he had converted to the Manichaean religion.

BeDuhn’s second volume definitely challenges views of Augustine as a saintly Father of the Church from the moment of his baptism, but presents very strong and convincing evidence for the positive influence of Manichaeism on his theological development and in his becoming a Catholic in a sense previously unknown in the Church.