Augustine’s Quest of Wisdom

'-. I ' ' lr l I REVIEWS 445 AUGUST1N"E'S QUEST OF WISDOM* J. M. KELLY The purpose of Mr. Bourke's bookis to show that one force dominated the life of St. Augustine, moulded his personality, and impressed a definite character. on what he calls "Augustinism:" The title of the book de~cribes. wh<1:t that force was. The wisdom which finally rewarded the quest was neither a philosophy nor a theology. Each played its role, no · ' doubt, in bringing the quest eo a happy fruition, but they were subsumed in a higher wisdom, which was the result of a divinely aided personal effort issuing in the contemplative repose of the soul in God. The book is an excellent account of one of the first examples of the Christian intellectual bent on the resolution of his difficulties. The work will scarcely have a popular appeal, for it is, ~nquestionably, a biography written for professors and specializing students. The details are constructed, almost en.tirely, from the saint's own writings but reveal, nevertheless, a wide acquaintance with and ~ careful study of the vast literature which has sprung up about Augustine's name. The book fails, however, to fulfil the expectations of · those who await the appearance, in English, of a good- account of the · "Philosophy of the Bishop of Hippo." Mr. Bourke's sub-title raises our·h~pes too high. The first part of the book; entitled "The Rhetorician)) (pp. 1-47), deals with that part of Augu. stine's.life when the wisdom that he ga_ined was but the ,·',wisdom. qf the flesh," followed and accompanied by the easy art of sophistry, the folly of astrology and s·uperstition, and the facile dualism of the, ·Manicheans. · "The Christian Philosopher" is the title of th~ second p~rt of the book (pp. 48-122). This section deals with the series of influences which brought Augustine to the final acceptance of the Christian faith. It was during these years (384-90) that he became acquainted with the writings of the NeaPlatonists , who formed for him a bridg~, by .which he escaped from materialism and Manich'eanism. The section witnesses, also, _ the overcoming of the trial which scepticism posed for his incipient faith. Throughout this. period Augustine was pretty well al9ne with his problems. No master instruct 'ed him; his doubts were not resolved by-reference to books; his experience was no classroom indoctrination. Mr. Bourke takes some pains to point out that this fact gave his teaching a distinctly personal flavour. It was his own: he emerged "a self made philosopher and even, to some extent,_ a self made theologian." His life from this point on was to be an example of what Anselm was later to call "fides quaerens intellectum." It remained to the end the search of a solitary. From the philosophical point of view this is the most interesting part of the book, for it ' shows the task of a Chr.istian humanist who was·not content, as some early Christians were, to repudiate the wisdom of this world, but sought to bring it all to the service *Augustin~·s f!(.uest of Wisdom: Life and Philosophy ofthe Bishop ojHippo. J•BouRKE, Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co. [Toronto: Ryerson]. 1945~ ($3.00) By V£RNON Pp. xii, 324. . 446 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO. QUARTERLY of truth. By a brief examination of some of Augustine's writrngs of this period, the author shows that the general outlines of Augustinian metaphysics and epistemology were being formed. Mr. Bourke's use ofthe term "supernatural'·' to describe the philosophy of Plotinus (p. 55), is, I think, unfortunate. The meaning of that term has become fixed and is no long~r associated with supraphysical, ~he only sense in which it is an accurate description of.Plotinian philosophy. The third part, "The Bishop's Work". (pp. 123-200), and the fourth part, "The l\llature Mind ofAugustine" (pp. 201-85), cover, to a great extent,.the same period of Augustine's life and describe the work that led to the final achievement of his Christian synthesis. Pretty well forced to accept the episcopal office at Hippo, he became the champion of the faith he had adopted. In the midst of the controversies with the Donatists and the-Pelagians his teaching took definite form. Three works, De Trinitate, De Genesi ad litteram, De Civitate Dei, represent, in Mr. Bourke's mind, the final answers of Augustine. Each of these works is analysed ~n the basis of a book-to-book account, the only fashion in which Mr. Bourke cares to deal with Augustine's writings. This method serves well in the outlining_of a problem, but it leaves much to be desired in the forming of a critical estimate of Augustine's position on the problems that were to become the grounds of medieval controversy. Mr. Bourke knows th;tt his method is not ideal and thinks that to expect otherwise would be "too much to demand not only of the ordinary reader but more especially of the ordinary author:'' Until that extraordinary author appears, no book which professes to describe Augustinian philosophy can be deemed wholly satisfactory. The gist of the analysis is that the quest of wisdom ultimately leads ·to but one object, God hims~lf. Whether yve consider the soul, the created world, or human society, their ultimate meaning, which is the meaning·that the wise man seeks,.is found in God alone. Wisdom, here on earth, e~ds in an enigma that will only be solved finally by the beatific vision of God, by a wisdom that will only be possessed by the citizens of the City of God. There alone will man be really wise; there alone Augustine's quest will end. MODERN GERMAN LITERATURE* w. L. GRAFF In this book less than 130 pages out of a total of 223 pages are pages of text. The remainder is made up of two indexes and a large-bibliography. According to the title-page, in these 130 pages the author covers seventy years o( intense literary activity. Moreover, the first chapter, entitled "Perspectives," extends the survey backward deep into the nineteenth century. The author expresses awareness of the difficulty inherent in his task. lndeed, one cause of the moderate suc~ess achieved is the extreme conden- *Modern German Literature, 1870-1940. By VICTOR LANOE. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. 1945. Pp. xvi, 223. ($2.50) \ ...