Gott und sein Bild: Augustins De Trinitate im Spiegel gegenwärtiger Forschung (review)

Johannes Brachtendorf, editor Gott und sein Bild: Augustins De Trinitate im Spiegel gegenwärtiger Forschung Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2000 Pp. 273. DM 88,00. Euro.44,99.

This volume contains a collection of papers presented at a conference at the University of Tübingen in November, 1998. After an introduction by the editor, the fourteen papers are clustered under four headings: (1) approaches to the De Trinitate, (2) theory of the subject, (3) theory of language and the concept of will, and (4) paths of reception in the Middle Ages.

Roland Kamy's paper brilliantly sketches various types of interpretation and tendencies in the treatment of De Trinitate in the century and a half since the pioneering work of Ferdinand Christian Baur, who interpreted Augustine's work in the framework of Hegelian idealism. The Neo-scholastic reaction to it, typified by Schmaus and De Régnon, was followed by the hermeneutic approach of Schindler and the Platonizing approach of Theiler and du Roy. Further models of interpretation stressed soteriology in the earlier books or the theory of self- consciousness in the latter books. Kamy also adds helpful information on recent philological studies.

Edmund Hill argues that Augustine's approach to the Trinity provides a better model of how the mystery of the Trinity ought to be presented in text books and catechisms than we typically find in works more influenced by St. Thomas. Basil Studer masterfully presents three themes under three headings: (1) under dispensatio the relation of Trinitarian faith to the history of salvation, (2) under historia the historical foundations of theology, and (3) under sensus plenior the richness of the biblical faith in comparison with the dogma of Nicaea.

In his article Gouven Madec argues for a "sound" interpretation of Augustine's De Trinitate, urging us to read the work not book by book but as a whole, as Augustine himself had recommended in the letter he wrote to accompany the finished work. In support of his contention, he points to many failures to understand the work that result from focusing upon individual books or aspects of the work.

Christoph Horn's article, the first in the second part, deals with the self's relation to itself in Plotinus and Augustine. Horn first isolates five motives for self-knowledge in ancient thought and then examines self-knowledge in Plotinus and Augustine. Jean Pépin argues for the influence of Porphyry on Augustine's argument in De Trinitate 10 that the whole mind knows the whole of itself. Ludger Hölscher's paper presents the clearest explanation of Augustine's arguments for the spirituality of the soul in De Trinitate that I have come across--a masterful piece of exegesis. Finally, Volker Henning Drecoll examines the relationship between Augustine's teaching on grace in De Trinitate 9, and his two contemporary anti-Pelagian works, De peccatorum meritis et remissione and De spiritu et littera, and points to a shift from an emphasis on Christ to an emphasis on the Holy Spirit in the treatment of grace. In the final article in this section Brachtendorf explores the similarities and differences between the human spirit as the image of the triune God and the triune God himself.

In the first article in part three, Robert Markus argues that understanding language provides Augustine with his paradigm of self-transcendence. Johann Kreuzer discusses Augustine's doctrine of the inner word in his relation to the spoken word and claims that the inner word is what allows memory to speak. In a third article John Rist explores Augustine's identification of love and will in De Trinitate 15.20.38, and distinguishes Augustine's concept of "voluntas" from that of the Stoics and the Platonists,

Three final essays discuss the reception of De Trinitate in the Middle Ages. Edward Booth writes on Aquinas's critique of Augustine's view of...