Augustine and the Catechumenate (review)

Professor Harmless has written a landmark book—a case study of Augustine and the extended process of conversion in Hippo, the catechumenate. Two things distinguish it: 1) an immersion in Augustine’s homilies that permits him to animate the bishop and the audience, and 2) the book’s purpose, namely, to assist in the Roman Catholic effort to reform the rites of initiation for converts. Such reforms, as every liturgical scholar knows, demand deep and penetrating knowledge of the patristic era. Professor Harmless’ purpose, far from distorting the study, invigorates it. In Augustine’s outreach—evangelization—to Hippo’s non- and fledgling Christians, the catechist and his audience come alive. And added attraction is the author’s singularly clear and supple prose and mastery of the sources and secondary literature (his translations are equally clear and supple).

Augustinian scholarship has not had a such an extensive study of Augustine, evangelist and catechist, since Dom Benedict Busch’s seminal study of sixty years ago: “De initiatione christiana secundum sanctum Augustinum,” and “De modo quo sanctus Augustinus descripserit initiationem christianam,” Epemerides Liturgicae 52 (1938): 159–78 and 385–483. To be sure there have been important studies since, among them those of Philip Weller (Selected Easter Sermons of St. Augustine [St. Louis: B. Herder, 1959]), Susanne Poque (Augustin d’Hippone: Sermons pour la Pâque [Paris: Éditions du Cerf (Sources chrétiennes 116), 1966]) and R. de Latte (“St. Augustin et le baptème. Étude liturgico-historique du rituel baptismal des adultes chez saint Augustin,” Questions liturgiques 56 [1975]: 177–223). But until Augustine and the Catechumenate arrived, I was persuaded that Dom Busch’s study was a must for translation (it should be done in any case).

The first four chapters set the stage. After introducing and discussing his purpose (chapter 1), Professor Harmless sets out to detail the church’s processes of conversion in the Mediterranean world, culminating in the fourth century catechumenate (chapter 2). He then moves on to Augustine as part of—and in process—Augustine the catechumen, petitioner (competens), and neophyte in Milan (chapter 3). The Confessions and Ambrose’s De sacramentis and De mysteriis, of course, are vital to the enterprise. In the fourth chapter he turns to Augustine the evangelist, i.e., his outreach to the Hippo’s non- and schismatic Christian world. The chapter provides a lively, thoroughly informed commentary on De catechizandis rudibus, his principal (but not only) source. Harmless’ distinctive touch comes to the fore: his deep familiarity with Augustine’s homilies coupled with a wide range of secondary studies. One is able to see Augustine, evangelist and catechist, against the background of classical rhetoric and to note the lives and types of people, high and low born, his catecheses attracted.

The author then settles into the task of animating Hippo’s catechumenate and its celebrated catechist. Correcting the misimpression (even among experts) that the catechmentate was primarily Lenten, he concentrates of the first stage of the process, one that could last half a lifetime (as it had for Augustine himself), the catechumenate properly speaking (chapter 5). Augustine, the preacher, for whom persuasion (and conversion) “meant not nodding assent but moral living” (p. 179), comes center stage. One senses the struggle, an agon all too well known to the preacher, that the catechumens were coming to know. Hippo, after all, was a North African city second only to Carthage, and no less a cauldron of addictive passion: “A seething cauldron [sartago]” Augustine says of Carthage (Cartago: Confessions 3:1; p. 141 n. 125). Incidentally, an invaluable feature for the inquisitive is the set of charts included, nineteen—at the end of this chapter is a set that lists Augustine’s sermons and works addressed to catechumens and his passing references to the catechumenate.

The heart of the sixth chapter comprises two catechetical sessions in December, 406: the first Tractate on Jn 1:1–15 and the Ennaratio on Ps 121. Harmless develops an insightful commentary on the rhetorical strategy of both homilies...