Memory in Augustine’s Theological Anthropology by Paige E. Hochschild (review)

In Memory in Augustine’s Theological Anthropology, Paige Hochschild seeks to recover “the neglected significance of memory as the foundation for Augustine’s theological anthropology” (4). Indeed, it comes as a surprise to most of us in the field that Hochschild’s work, a revision of her 2005 dissertation, is the first book-length study of Augustine’s understanding of memory. As such, it is a useful resource for thinking about the main texts and the philosophical background related to this relatively under-studied topic.

Hochschild’s main purpose in studying memory in Augustine is twofold: to contribute to the ongoing discussion of Augustine’s theory of knowledge and, more importantly, to demonstrate that, for Augustine, memory is at the heart of what it means to be a human being made in the image of God. Memory, Hochschild argues, “unites the embodied and intellectual aspects of human existence, and demands that the effects of grace pervade the whole person, both through the right ordering in relation to creation, and, prior to this, through a rightly ordered grounding in the divine” (167).

The book is divided into three major parts: part I deals with Greek philosophical antecedents; part II deals with Augustine’s early works; and part III treats Augustine’s mature work on memory (in particular, Confessions 10–13 and De Trinitate 12–14). Hochschild’s approach in these three parts is both historical and exegetical. She wants to root Augustine’s understanding of memory in a “history of ideas,” primarily from the Greek philosophical tradition, but she also wants to give an account of Augustine’s own development on this question. Rather than abstracting the main ideas of Augustine and the Greeks, Hochschild analyzes particular texts within the context they in which were written. She moves through the major passages from major works on memory and exegetes them with nuance.

In the first part of her study, Hochschild focuses on the “Platonist” influences on Augustine—Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus in particular. While Augustine certainly had other philosophical influences (the Stoics or Cicero in his mediation of the Greek tradition, for example) it is these three, Hochschild argues, who lay the groundwork, who set the questions, and who offer the range of possible answers. Hochschild does not argue for strict parallels between any of these philosophers and Augustine, but rather for resonances. This allows her to situate Augustine within the “history of ideas,” arguing that, while Augustine is certainly most influenced by Plotinus (to whom he had the most access), many of his conclusions are closer to Plato and Aristotle.

Part II treats Augustine’s early philosophical works from the time of his conversion up to his ordination in 391: the Cassiciacum dialogues, the treatises on the soul, and De magistro and De musica. In these, the topic of memory emerges gradually, first in relation to the nature of wisdom and then in thinking through how sense perception is related to wisdom. But it is in these dialogues that Augustine begins to realize the centrality of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, as well as “the incarnational rationale for an anthropology founded on memory” (110). These insights point ahead to Augustine’s mature discussion in the Confessions.

In Part III, Hochschild discusses memory in the Confessions, what she considers the heart of her study, as well as in De Trinitate. Book 10 of the Confessions famously deals with memory, and most scholars isolate this text from its context. Hochschild situates it in the overall work and ably shows how it is foundational for understanding the last three books, a perennial headache for Augustine scholars. Augustine’s discussion of memory in book 10 raises questions of how the temporal, embodied soul can have union with the eternal. This propels the argument into books 11–13: book 11 takes up the question of the relation between the temporal and eternal through the discussion of the Incarnation and the analogy of...