History, Apocalypse, and the Secular Imagination: New Essays on Augustine' "City of God" (review)

Mark Vessey, Karla Pollmann, and Allan D. Fitzgerald, O.S.A., editors
History, Apocalypse, and the Secular Imagination: New Essays on Augustine's "City of God"
Bowling Green, OH: Philosophy Documentation Center, 1999
Pp. 334. $38.00.

At first blush, history, apocalypse, and the secular imagination are disparate categories. This volume attempts to think about these themes together as they appear in Augustine's great work. We enter the City of God from three directions, all of which intersect one another across the bishop's map of time. The unity among the eighteen essays comes through their common effort to place the City of God (hereafter CD) among other antique historiographies, and to note its "complex operation . . . upon the Roman cultural memory, especially as encoded in 'classical' texts; to uncover its designs upon Christian collective consciousness, especially as informed by the imagery, plot, and rhetoric of the biblical revelation (and Revelation); to trace its impact upon subsequent visions of human society in time, down to the present premillenial fin de siècle" (20-21).

Essays under the rubric History explore Augustine's motives and methods in writing. Neil McLynn sets the stage, contending that the "earthly city" was shaped, first of all, by Augustine's personal contacts and perceptions of the empire from his North African home. Gerald O'Daly's essay compares and contrasts CD with Cicero's Republic. Catherine Conybeare, in turn, expands on Augustine's assimilation to and departure from past Roman historians. Philippe Bruggisser and Paul Burns compare Augustine's historiography to those of Servius and Sallust, respectively. They show how the bishop challenged their assumptions regarding the empire's world-historical significance. David Lambert completes the historical essays with a comparison between CD and Salvian's de gubernatione dei.

The Apocalypse articles question prevailing assumptions and break new ground regarding Augustine's apocalyptic sensibilities. Paul B. Harvey, Jr. recognizes Augustine's indebtedness to Tyconius in allegorizing Revelation in CD. Harry O. Maier draws on Frank Kermode's hermeneutics in revisioning notions of the bishop's use of Revelation. Karla Pollmann demonstrates how the stock assumption that Augustine was a thoroughgoing anti-chiliast should be modified. Fear, desire, and the "grossness" of the flesh in relation to the biblical Apocalypse are explored in Virginia Burrus's essay. Heaven and hell in the moral and spiritual dimensions Augustine casts for them are taken up in Thomas A. Smith's and Kevin Coyle's contributions. Finally, Kevin L. Hughes shows how early medieval exegetes blended Augustine's anagogical apocalypse with older chiliastic interpretations.

The essays dealing with the Secular Imagination examine how the City of God's legacy has influenced modern authors. The seventeenth-century Englishman, John Bale, drew upon Augustine for his own apocalyptic scenario. Gretchen Minton describes how Bale used "hermeneutical spaces" in the CD (made by Augustine's reticence about chiliasm) to set forth his eschatological expectancy. Mark Vessey describes how John Healey's 1610 edition made its way to the library of the London Virginia Company, especially given the clash of contexts between the late Roman Fall and English colonial ascent. Peter J. Burnell brings Martin Heidegger's and Hannah Arendt's views on Augustine to light. Both philosophers claim in different ways that Augustine dehumanized heaven. To the contrary, Augustine held that one who desires heaven may yet love other people, and humans retain a species of freedom, even in heaven, to turn from God. Joanna Vecchiarelli Scott explores Arendt further, explaining how she secularized Augustine and drew upon him in her radical thought. Finally, Michael J. Hollerich contrasts Robert Markus's seminal work, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine with John Milbank's Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason. He contends that Markus reads Augustine through modern lenses, ascribing an individualism to the saint that Milbank argues fails to...