Brief Notices

BRIEF NOTICES Le Traitement Scientifique de la Morale Chretenne selon S. Augustin. By THOMAS DEMAN, 0. P. Montreal: Institut d'Etudes Medievales, and Paris: J. Vrin, 1957. Pp. 133. The last work of the late eminent Pere Thomas Deman, 0. P., is concerned with the development of St. Augustine's moral thought, not from a primarily historical or critical point of view but more with a view to emphasizing the evolving ideas of the Bishop of Hippo on the method of treating Christian morality. P. Deman's aim is not to expose or summarize Augustine's actual teaching on moral topics such as faith, charity, almsgiving or marriage, but rather to stress the notions which would supply the basis for a fully scientific treatment of the theology of the Christian life. As is pointed out in a preface, this volume is an expansion of a section of the author's .Aux Origines de la theologie morale (Montreal, Paris: 1951) which was devoted to the gradual development of moral theology as an integral and fully .scientific part of the whole of sacred doctrine. While this full development was not to be accomplished until St. Thomas wrote the Secunda Pars, it is to St. Augustine that the theologian looks for the inspiration and many of the key notions which provided the basis for this later growth. This work of P. Deman's is thus of great significance to-day when so much attention centers on the methodologic construction of a moral theology, for the author has ably and thoroughly pointed out the great ideas of Augustine which are operative in such a construction. Moral theology first of all is not a heterogeneous mixture of Christian thought and pagan speculation. It is primarily an outgrowth and an exigency of the faith itself-a point well made by the author in Chapter I, and which is certainly essential to an understanding of the true homogenity of faith and theology. The author points out that Augustine's moral teaching passed from the stage of being an exhortation and explanation of rules consequent on catechetical instruction to a more conscious and systematic matter in which the phase of moral exhortation would depend on a exposition of moral doctrine. The catechetical works of the great Doctor insist on the necessity of moral in addition to doctrinal instruction but there is as yet no plan for a genuine moral theology on a scientific basis. In this category, P. Deman places works as the de catechizandis rudibus, and the de fide et operibus. In other writings, Augustine stressed more the need for a.moral doctrine around which to organize and on which to base pastoral teaching and 304 BRIEF NOTICES 305 instruction in the good life. In elementary form and in relation to particular problems, this is manifested in such works as the de bono viduitatia and the de continentia in which Augustine found the need for an explanation in rational terms of the Christian values. The Enchiridion with its division of teaching into the quid credendum, aperandum and amandum is a step to more general organization based on Scriptural teaching: the essential need for charity in imitation of Christ. Yet this synthetic work does not contain the notions necessary to explain and understand the relations of faith and love, the place of law and authority in reference to charity, and the structural relationship of the various Christian virtues. At least, there is a recognition of the need for a doctrine of Christian action as well as for an exposition of Christian faith. Augustine's knowledge and high regard for philosophy was to provide the necessary intellectual tools for deeper understanding and a more rationally coherent treatment of the moral life. Here the great Doctor is presented (Chapter VI) as making his most notable contributions to the development of a moral synthesis. Basic to this was the place assigned to the notion of beatitude: of human life centered on and understood in terms of a seeking of God, the object of beatitude. Moral rectitude, later to be so strongly emphasized by St. Anselm, is based on the direction of man's life to his natural destiny. Augustine accepts this...