Augustine by Henry Chadwick (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 347 Our final wonderment therefore concerns whether the .Phaedo's allegedly typical " vilification" of the body warrants dismissing the dialogues from the contemporary philosopher-of-religion's full consideration. To begin with, that vilification does not originate logographically with Plato's Socrates, but with Socrate's young Pythagarean interlocutors who visit him in prison on his execution day. Having been taught albeit inadequately that man's mortal body itself imprisons an immortal soul, so that death but not suicide is to be welcomed as a release (cf. 6ld-62b), they are paradoxically upset when confronting Socrates's death first-hand. Socrates must therefore either reassure them logically of the soul's immortality or, failing that, console or charm them with an otherwise questionable myth, to prevent their falling into misology. Catering to his addressees' premises, if only provisionally, is the price the dialectician must pay in order to persuade-whether logically or, as in the Phaedo, largely mythically. Meanwhile Socrates uses every occasion to exhort his young friends to virtue, given the conception of human nature to which they are agreeable. Indeed, would such an exhortation be even possible if the philosopher of religion were to deny that nature somehow sets standards for human life~ In this connection, it remains difficult to see how the modern wish to overcome nature for the sake of enabling the edifying work of grace in transforming human desires would be ,an improvement over the older view that grace does not destroy nature but rather completes it. Contra Despland, would not the contemporary philosopher of religion be well encouraged to educate the desires implanted in us by nature, as Plato's dialogue suggest, instead of viewing nature as if it were indifferent to that education, as the modern doctrines suggest (248f., 296ff.) ¥ North Texas State University Denton, Texas MARTIN D. y AFFE .Augustine. By HENRY CHADWICK. Past Masters Series. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Pp. 122. $14.94 (cloth). What is a scholar of the stature of Henry Chadwick doing writing a book on St. Augustine which is only 120 pages in length~ The Past Masters series is a uniform set of volumes serving as concise introductions to the thought of notable intellectual figures of enduring influence. More thau seventy-five figures of the past, from Aquinas. to Wyclif, are included in this series. With the weight ·Of his scholarship and his perduring influence on every age including his and our own, Augustine surely fits into this 348 BOOK REVIEWS illustrious company. Each of the volumes is handled by an acknowledged master whose acquaintance with the subject qualifies him to write authoritatively on him or her. Henry Chadwick is eminently qualified to write on Augustine, whose student he has been for many years. The Regius Professor Emeritus of Divinity at Cambridge is an esteemed scholar of early church history with a broad knowledge of both eastern and western traditions. Moreover, he has already successfully turned his hand to popular writing in the widely read first volume of the Pelican History of the Church. The present study is a well-written and admirable introduction to the thought of the great bishop of Hippo. Augustine must surely present a great challenge to the would-be synthesizer . Not only would the bulk of his work and its great diversity serve to cool a writer's ardor, but also the personal character of Augustine's approach would demand a deep familiarity as well as a boldness in grabbing hold of ideas as they developed in the manifold situations in which the great theologian found himself. Using material from his Toronto (1980) and Oxford (1982-3) lectures, Professor Chadwick explores the main lines of Augustine's thought: Neoplatonism , free will, the Trinity, the soul, the church in the world, nature and grace, etc. The first quarter of the book is devoted to the figures who decisively influenced the thought of Augustine: Cicero, Mani, Plato, and Christ. On a secondary level to these one also clearly discerns the figures of Vergil, Plotinus, Porphyry, and St. Paul. A particularly good precis of the teaching of the two Neoplat~mists in itself and in its effect on Augustine...