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Reviewed by:
  • Augustine’s Cyprian: Authority in Roman Africa by Matthew Alan Gaumer
  • Geoffrey D. Dunn
Matthew Alan Gaumer
Augustine’s Cyprian: Authority in Roman Africa
Brill’s Series in Church History 73
Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016
Pp. 377. $175.00.

At its heart this book examines the issues of the authority Cyprian held in late antique Africa and who could claim to be his successor. This is viewed through the lens of Augustine of Hippo’s changing involvement in both the Donatist and Pelagian controversies. Gaumer argues that in the African context of Donatism, Augustine was something of a maverick standing against a long opposition to the outside world and imperial involvement. In that context Cyprian, although important, needed to be downplayed somewhat through reinterpretation and universalized, while in the Pelagian context Cyprian was used without hesitation. From the outset the author acknowledges that this book looks at Augustine’s appropriation of Cyprian (viewed thematically rather than contextually) and less at how Augustine’s opponents appropriated him, and that it makes great use of comparative numerical data.

Gaumer is very conscious that reading Augustine over the centuries has been strongly influenced by the polemical debates of the time. The initiative for an investigation into Augustine’s appropriation of Cyprian is something the author kindly attributes to an article I wrote in 2010. The question then is the extent to which this book answers my call.

The volume is divided into three chronological parts: the first, in three chapters, investigates Augustine’s earliest years in ministry; the second, also in three chapters, focuses on the Donatist controversy, which Gaumer argues was a problem for Augustine long after the colloquium of 411; and the third part, in a single chapter with attached conclusion, considers the Pelagian controversy. There is no doubt that the Donatist controversy presented Augustine with his most difficult challenge in terms of his attitude toward Cyprian, but it is great to see that this volume is not limited to that controversy. Indeed, having a wider purview than just Donatism enables Gaumer to show us, through contrast with other phases of Augustine’s life, just how constrained and selective Augustine’s treatment of Cyprian was during those years when Donatism seemed to dominate his activity. Augustine both appealed to and downplayed Cyprian to the extent that it was necessary to advance his own arguments.

In part, the chronological argument depends upon dating Augustine’s homilies. Gaumer notes that the dates assigned are rather tendentious (xix) but offers the suggestions from five leading scholars to cover variation. Given Hubertus Drobner’s challenge in a series of articles in Augustinian Studies nearly two decades ago to the whole enterprise of trying to date Augustine’s homilies, I think that Gaumer needs to do more to establish criteria for assigning dates to Augustine’s homilies. Because Donatism was a longer-running issue for Augustine than scholarship traditionally has recognized, the issue becomes even more convoluted. Are certain parallels with topics and themes (if such themes are restricted to one particular phase of Augustine’s career) in datable letters sufficient to secure dates for the homilies? [End Page 504]

The groundwork is laid in the first chapter’s discussion about Donatism’s impact in the earliest years (prior to 400) of Augustine’s ministry. The themes that emerge here are his personal experiences of Donatist pride and error, the differences between African isolationist and Italian universalized Christianity, and the differences between Augustine’s Christianity and Donatism. Cyprian is little evidenced in this chapter. If there is a conclusion to be drawn from this absence, Gaumer does not make it, other than to say that Augustine has not yet latched on to the importance of Cyprian. The chapter finishes with material drawn from some homilies.

It is in the second chapter that Gaumer asks why Augustine needed Cyprian. The answer is that Augustine’s own failures in the 390s in making headway against the Donatists led him to reconsider the value of appeals to authority (ranging from divine authority in Scripture down to the personal authority of prominent individuals). From the late 390s, Cyprian was one such authority, and one who needed to...

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