Political Writings (review)

In a fallen world, anthologies are necessary. This one serves professors and students by gathering together writings by Augustine that have influenced Western political theory and practice. The presentation of texts is clear, and their selection seems judicious—so long as one is confident that Augustine conceived of things “political” in roughly the same way that we moderns do. One should not be too confident.

The editors have struck a sensible balance by providing readers with excerpts from throughout Augustine’s most ostensibly political work, City of God, and then organizing additional excerpts from other writings around themes such as “law and self-defense,” “war,” “the use of persecution,” “property,” and “the status of women.” Thematic chapters clearly identify the sources of passages, thus anchoring readers in their original settings. This approach is far preferable to the comparable 1962 anthology edited by Henry Paolucci and still in print—which conveyed an artificial unity when it spliced passages together from different writings with no notice other than a footnote. With the same hope of allowing readers to encounter Augustine’s texts as directly as possible, the translators have favored a somewhat literal (but still quite readable) rendering.

The editors are not unaware of the peril involved in presenting any writing of Augustine’s as “political.” Fortin’s introduction begins by recognizing that Augustine never used the adjective “political” except when quoting Varro, and that not even City of God is exclusively about politics. Inclusion of a chapter on the status of women undoubtedly reflects growing awareness that domains once designated as strictly “personal” may be eminently political.

Ecclesiology too may be political, however. What this volume does not include except by happenstance are clues confronting readers with the possibility that to identify with a pilgrim people living in exile from its true homeland is itself an eminently political act. How might the Christian church best shape its earthly sociology according to its pilgrim existence? With Donatist over-confidence about such things nagging him, Augustine hesitated to answer too precisely—but omission of Augustine’s succinct summary statements in City of God 14.1 and 18.1 works to underplay the question. How exactly should such a people seek and use the peace of that earthly city in which it finds itself? Again, Augustine was not precise—but the editors have omitted the climax of City of God 19 which suggests in chapter 26 that Augustine’s answer might be closer to the prophet Jeremiah’s than to that of the Stoic wise man who embraces tragic “necessity” (19.6). Hadn’t Augustine commended the conflicted peacemaking of this wise man? Perhaps, but the editors do not include passages (19.10, 19.20) that underscore Augustine’s goal of distancing the reader from claims of the earthly city and its shadowy “peace.”

One might object that Augustine’s ecclesiology remained too sketchy for its political implications to be clear, but that is because his politics was sketchy in the first place. Augustine further complicated both when he changed his mind to favor persecution of the Donatists (which the anthology covers, but Fortin’s introduction neglects). Thus, any normative Augustinianism (which is what any Augustine-informed political theory will be) must move beyond Augustine himself.

Competing Augustinianisms have always been possible. Students can only explore the alternatives if the materials before them include Augustine’s groping recognition that the very existence of a scattered people might serve as a sign to other nations, that the kind of power that the nations wield is actually a very desperate and impoverished kind of power, that it was the blood of martyrs had converted gentile peoples and their kings (City of God 7.32, 11.1, 18.50). Because Augustine’s politics and his ecclesiology were both sketchy, the only chance we have to understand and perhaps appropriate either is to juxtapose more of the...