Augustine of Hippo by Peter Brown (review)

446 BOOK REVIEWS Augustine of Hippo. By Peter Brown. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967. Pp. 463 with bibliography and index. $10.00. In an age of intellectual and political turbulence it is both refreshing and reassuring to recall that other men in other times have lived through similar, and perhaps more violent periods of upheaval. Mr. Peter Brown, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, serves as an excellent pedagogue as he situates Augustine, the Catholic Bishop of Hippo, in the midst of the ferment that accompanied the dissolution of the Late Roman Empire, and more particularly in the ultimate capitulation to change that occurred on the African frontier. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this remarkable book is that Augustine, classically considered either as saint or scholar, comes through as a very real person who reacts in a real way to the demands of his situation . At the risk of using a fatigue-wearied word, the " whole " Augustine lives in these pages acting in his time and reacting to it in turn and thereby influencing the course of Christian thought in the centuries to come. Of the many questions to which Augustine addressed his attention, that of human freedom emerges as pivotal for both his personal life and his intellectual achievement. In his middle years Manichean determinism was as unacceptable as would be the self-determinism of the Pelagians whom he relentlessly confronted at the close of his life. Like all men, Augustine was on pilgrimage, and he experienced both freedom and its lack within himself. Meditating anew on the writings of St. Paul he discovered the key to his problem's resolution in the notion of delight. As conceptualized, " delight " transcends the naked operation of intellect and will and fuses with them feeling and love as well as something apart from and beyond man himself. The resultant vital capacity goes far beyond man's powers of self-determination, so that he must grow in his freedom, and this growth is accomplished only by healing. It is this healing, the gratia sanans, that brings man to maturity, so that he moves while being moved to that complete freedom that transcends choice, with the result that any alternative is inconceivable. Not all of the questions that vexed Augustine receive consideration in this biography-and this by deliberate intent of the author-nor are all of the practical problems that beset a rich and varied life treated. Particularly rewarding, however, is the figure which emerges of the scholarly Bishop of Hippo who fought to establish the Roman Church in a Donatistdominated land and who went on to place his seemingly indelible mark on the whole of the Latin Church itself. The pressure of events convinced Augustine that truth is served not only in scholarly retreat but in the market-place of men and that God's designs are executed in time by the unremitting and uncompromising endeavors of men. BOOK REVIEWS 447 Mr. Brown's accomplishment should serve as a paradigm for those who would assay a biography worth writing. To read this book is a delightful and transforming experience. Dominican House of Studies Washington, D. C. WILLIAM B. RYAN, 0. P. The One Mediator. Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas, vol. 50 {Sa. 16-20). Translated with introduction, notes, appendices and glossary by Colman O'Neill, 0. P. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965. Pp. 296. $7.50. The Names and Titles of Jesus. By Leopold Sabourin, S. J. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967. Pp. 352. $7.95. In his theological reflection on the Incarnation in the Summa St. Thomas, after considering the fact of the Incarnation and the qualities of Christ's humanity, treats of the consequences of this union. This section is particularly concerned with Christ's unity and with His relation to the Father and to us. St. Thomas's technical language is not easy to translate into readable English, but Fr. O'Neill's smooth translation helps us to grasp the thought of the Angelic Doctor. It reflects the precision of the Latin text, but it is more concerned with an accurate expression of St. Thomas's thought than with a rigid adherence...