Augustine of Hippo
by Peter Robert Lamont Brown

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Book Reviews of Augustine of Hippo

Book Review: Impressive Documentation
Summary: 4 Stars

Peter Brown, writing from All Soul's College at Oxford, England, thoroughly documents the events, activities and inner workings of Augustine. The Bishop of Hippo's story is interwoven with accounts of the state of the Roman Empire as a whole and North Africa, in particular. Brown's telling is so vivid that an artist could chose a stage of Augustine's life and then accurately paint Augustine surrounded by his local counterparts with elements of the Empire in the background.

The text is well-documented with most pages having five or more footnotes. The bibliography takes up 18 pages. Brown used primary souces in Latin, as well as, scholarly works in English, German and French.

Augustine is presented as a gifted child, and then as a out-going bright young adult who in turn grows into one of the most remarkable religious leaders and writers of all time. Brown writes marvelously interesting chapters and when I thought that he couldn't top the writing and interesting material of one chapter, I would again be fascinated by the next chapter.

A helpful feature of the text are the five Chronological Tables, one at the beginning of each major division of the book. The tables list each year with major events, if any, in Augustine's life or the Empire's history. Later tables also list corresponding texts and letters written by Augustine during the year.

At times during the reading, I smiled at Brown's choice of works. The words were strange, but the context gave their meaning away. A conventible of Manichees was a gathering and a love-philtre is apparently a love letter or gift.

At other times, Brown's writing choices were strange to me and remained strange. Early in the text, Brown made a number of comparisons to the Mandarins of China. Being unfamiliar with Chinese history,the meaning he wanted to convey escaped me. Another cue I missed about Augustine's taking of a concubine.

Augstine's family was relatively prosperous and Augustine was unusually close to his mother, Monica. According to Brown, African's of Augustine's time excelled in play-on-words" and as lawyers. Augustine was an excellent student of the law. The Roman Empire had no need for Southerners and Augustine pursued a career teaching Latin rhetoric.

Brown does not delve into describing the relationship of Monica and Augustine, while I am sure that other author's have. Their relationship seems an interesting pursuit of study to me and I have my own theory as to why they were so close. My explanation is that Augustine loved order and Monica represented that in his childhood, as opposed to his father, who had a temper.

Augustine's story after his conversion is completed dominated by his growth as a Christian, his internal growth and his growth in service and writing. Brown's biography has teachings and quotes of the adult Christian Augustine throughout the text, not just in chronological order. For instance, Brown would tell of an incident in Augustine's younger life and at that time include remarks Augustine made in his Confessions about the same event. For example in Chapter 2, Brown says that to Augustine the evolution of the heart is the real stuff of biography.

Augustine's Confessions is his most studied work. According to Brown, the Confessions is the first time a literary work included quotes from what we now know as the bible. I noted that Augustine regarded his Confessions as a therapy or medical treatment.

According to Brown, no thinker in the Early Church wa so preoccupied the the nature of human relationships. In contrast, Augustine wrote that nature was God's "dumb show."

Besides his literary contributions of general Christian interest, much of Augustine's writings had to do with fighting the heresies. I was much impressed with the intensity of the heretical movements Augustine had to deal with the Manichees and Donatists. The situation in Northern Africa, during his time, was comparable to the violence suffered now in the same region among those of different beliefs.

Much of Augustine's time as a bishop was spent in acting as a judge, as was the custom of the time. The "philosopher" soul of Augustine must have been much troubled to have spent so much dealing with small and large controversies. Despite, or perhaps, because of his adult life being spent dealing with serious controversies, Augustine made significant contributions to the Church and history besides his writings. According to Brown, it was Augustine who established a pattern of Catholic priests being "separate" from the laity. Augustine had loved being a teacher and brought the same "school" ideas to the priest-hood. He had as many as possible of his priest living and studying communally separate from the community.

Augustine's last ten days of life were a surprise to me. A man who had surrounded himself with students, priests, and friends all of his life, chose to spend the end alone in prayer. I would have thought he would have wanted to had last goodbyes with the people he had loved to share with so much during his life.

Brown's biography of Augustine is a gift to scholars, as well as, a collection of information from other sources. He achieves his goal and educates his reader, at least, this one.

Summary of Augustine of Hippo

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• Subjects > Christian Books & Bibles > Catholicism > Saints
• Theology
• Biographies & Memoirs > Leaders & Notable People > Religious
• People, A-Z > ( A ) > Augustine, Saint
• Literature & Fiction > Classics