Augustine's Text of John: Patristic Citations and Latin Gospel Manuscripts (review)

Anyone who has worked with the text of Augustine or of any other Latin author of the fourth or fifth century is well aware of the variety of ways in which the biblical text is cited. Jerome's translation, which we now call the Vulgate, was being produced at the time Augustine was writing and was not universally adopted as soon as it was available, and nor was it immediately available everywhere in the Roman Empire. Houghton's very learned study is skillfully executed, highly enlightening, and extremely valuable for anyone working with the biblical text of Augustine. The work focuses upon the Latin text of the Gospel of John used by the bishop of Hippo, but much that Houghton writes is applicable to Augustine's use of other books of the Bible as well as to the use of them by other authors of the period.

The volume has three parts. The first part entitled "Augustine and the Gospels" is more general and will prove of value even to someone who has not specialized in Augustine's use of the text of John. The first of its four chapters discusses Augustine and the history of the biblical text. The second chapter deals with the use and production of the books of the Bible in Augustine's time. The third treats Augustine exposition and citation of the Bible, and the fourth assesses Augustine's position as a witness to the New Testament text.

Jerome's translation of the gospels appeared in 383. Prior to that time Augustine had at his disposal only the Old Latin, which existed in many different versions, only a few of which have survived. But by approximately 403 he adopted Jerome's translation of the gospels, although he continued to use an Old Latin version, especially when he was preaching away from his home church in Hippo and may have had only an Old Latin text available to him. The situation is complicated by the fact that Augustine often quoted from memory so that one finds in some works a passage from the Vulgate combined with an Old Latin version and Augustine's remembered text. The second chapter on the use and production of biblical books in Augustine's time sums up a great deal of information that we, who think of the Bible as one book, are likely to forget, for in that period manuscripts circulated and were produced in codices that usually contained a group of biblical books, such as the gospels or the Pauline writings. The third chapter studies Augustine's exposition of the biblical text and his way of citing it and is again of much of value for any student of Augustine's works. The fourth chapter looks at Augustine as a witness for the New Testament text and serves in some sense as a conclusion for the whole book since the remaining two parts are mainly illustrations of Augustine's adoption of Jerome's translation in all of his works and particularly and more in detail his citations from John's Gospel.

The second part examines the citations of the Gospel of John in the Tractatus in Iohannis Evangelium, other sermons, and in the early works, those from 403 to 419, and those after that period and shows that, although Augustine began using Jerome's translation around 403, he continued to use an Old Latin version for at least fifteen years afterward and even later in secondary citations that he made from memory.

The third part, which runs more than half of the length of the book, examines Augustine's citations of John and the differences between the text he cites and the Vulgate. Houghton's aim is to "assess the significance of Augustine's readings for the history of the biblical text" (183). Hence, this part is intended to provide "a basis on which to justify the...