Augustine: His Thought in Context (review)

Approaching Augustine of Hippo is never an easy task. Along with the 16 centuries that separate him from a contemporary reader, there is the breadth of his corpus, the wide range of issues he dealt with, and the complexities of his own development. Added to this is his own often digressive and expansive style—standard fare for late antiquity, but remote and foreign to modern tastes. T. Kermit Scott, a professor of philosophy at Purdue University, seems clearly aware of these obstacles—and they guide the scope of the work.

Given the daunting figure of Augustine, this study is merely meant to be an “introduction,” situating the man historically and presenting his “core doctrines.” This intent frames the tripartite division of the work: an exposition of Augustine’s world, an explanation of his fundamental doctrine—“the search for God,” and an unfolding of the “system” that embodies this fundamental doctrine—Augustinianism. With a clear non-specialist audience in mind, S. intends with all of this to provide a “more balanced view” of this enormously influential and controversial thinker. Three key terms proposed in the Introduction alert the reader to the framework that will guide the analysis to follow: myth, ideology, and power. These three categories provide the tools to be used by S. to explore Augustine’s context and thought. Myth, while never precisely defined, functions descriptively as that which unconsciously drives Augustine. Ideology is the dominating vision and its accompanying structures that satisfy the myth. For S. power is what Augustine’s myth is all about—and leads him to “god,” not “God” (S. alternates between upper-case and lower-case “gods”): “it is clear that his god is, above all, the imperial ruler of the universe, and what cannot be sacrificed at any price is the absolute power of that god” (13). The study proceeds then as an attempt to unmask and unravel Augustine’s “power ideology” and its inevitable consequences: human freedom must be denied as its price and pessimism is its unavoidable conclusion.

Part One seeks to explain Augustine’s world. In fact, it is a world provided by G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, R. MacMullen, Lane Fox, and Peter Brown. These are the most quoted authors. S. draws from them his portrait of Late Antiquity—credulous, oppressive, reactionary. It is into this “power” world that Augustine enters. S. portrays an Augustine solely concerned with influence, status, and aristocracy. There is little sense of a search for happiness, wisdom, truth, or beauty.

Part Two takes the reader into Augustine’s central doctrine. His wandering through a world of competing power ideologies finally takes him to his own final myth. In the end it is merely a return to the primitive “Roman” power god bequeathed him by his mother, Monica. Out of this infant myth Augustine chisels his “Catholic god”—clear winner of the power game. Beneath Augustine’s sophisticated language and arguments it all seems to come down to this—“my god is bigger than your god.” S. labels this end product as the “Imperial Myth,” not a reference to the Roman Empire but to the “all-conquering Catholic god” (145). Interestingly, S. finds little place for Bible or Christology—the Christ of the scriptures is absorbed into Augustine’s deeper urges.

Part Three takes the reader from this central doctrine to Augustine’s “system,” the network of concepts and ideas he constructed to support and protect his central doctrine. This system effectively served the needs of all involved: simple laity found security, not-so-simple hierarchy found willing subjects—though the real winner is the Imperial Myth. Sin, determination, and predestination create his bleak, colorless, but well-defined world—everyone knows who is in charge. S. insists that so persuasive was Augustine in arguing this system that even his most formidable opponents never managed to step outside the rigid boundaries created by the system—even they found no way around the god of the Imperial Myth.

Despite periodic...