Augustine in His Own Words

542 Pages·2010·3.43 MB·English

by  William Harmless

Augustine
in His Own wOrds
!

Augus t i n e
in His Own wOrds
edited by William Harmless, S. J.
!
the Catholic university of America Press
washington, d. C.
Copyright © 2010
the Catholic university of America Press
All rights reserved
the paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American national standards for information science—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Augustine, saint, Bishop of Hippo.
[selections. english. 2010]
Augustine in his own words / edited by william Harmless.
p. cm.
includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes.
isbn 978-0-8132-1743-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
i. Harmless, william, 1953– ii. title.
br65.a52e6 2010b
270.2—dc22
2010011081
For Wayne Conway

COntents
List of illustrations viii
introduction: Of Portraits, Voices, and the Art of Mosaic ix
Abbreviations xxiii
the works of Augustine: texts and translations xxvii
1 Confessions 1
2 Augustine the Philosopher 39
3 Augustine the Bishop 78
4 Augustine the Preacher 122
5 Augustine the exegete 156
6 Controversies (i): Against the Manichees 201
7 Controversies (ii): Against the donatists 232
8 Augustine the theologian: On the Trinity 274
9 Controversies (iii): On the City of God,
Against the Pagans 315
10 Controversies (iV): Against the Pelagians 373
epilogue 437
Chronology: the Life and Major works of Augustine 441
suggestions for Further reading 447
index of scripture 469
index of Augustinian texts 475
index of Other Ancient Authors and texts 480
index of Persons and subjects 482
iLLustrAtiOns
Vittore Carpaccio, St. Augustine in His Study x
Map, Fourth-Century italy and
roman north Africa xliv
Map, Augustine’s north Africa 79
Photograph, the ruins of Augustine’s
Basilica Pacis 123
intrOduCtiOn
Of Portraits, Voices, and the Art of Mosaic
Medieval and renaissance artists loved to imagine the great saints of the past,
how they looked, how they dressed, how they lived. st. Augustine (354–430)
was an occasional subject. Most artistic renderings of him, whether in paint-
ings or illuminated manuscripts or stained glass windows, are rather work-
manlike.1 But there is one great portrait of him. it is a large oil painting by Vit-
tore Carpaccio (c. 1460–c. 1526), entitled Saint Augustine in His Study.2 Carpaccio
portrays Augustine seated behind a desk, stylus in hand, his right arm raised
in the air, poised between thoughts, ready to transcribe the next great theo-
logical inspiration. scattered about his desk and beneath his feet are books,
some piled up, others lying open, all expensively bound. He sits completely
alone in a spacious, elegant study. the room’s high ceiling is ornately paneled.
in the background is a small private chapel, located in a niche, with an episco-
pal miter left behind on the altar and an episcopal crosier leaning up against
the wall. Augustine himself is given a european’s face, bearded, fair-skinned.3
He is dressed in the refined robes of a renaissance bishop and gazes out not at
us, but to the left, at some scene visible through the nearby window or, more
likely, at some far-off horizon beyond the senses’ grasp.
it is a wonderfully dramatic image. it is also almost entirely wrong.
what’s wrong with it? First, Augustine was no european. He was an Afri-
can, a native of thagaste (now souk Ahras in Algeria), and he spent nearly 35
years of his life as the bishop of a second-rate, bustling north African port
city, Hippo regius (now Annaba on the Algerian-tunisian border). His con-
temporaries acclaimed him one of the great masters of the Latin language,
1. see Joseph C. schnaubelt and Frederick Van Fleteren, eds., Augustine in Iconography: History and Legend,
Augustinian Historical institute series, vol. 4 (new York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1999).
2. this painting graces the cover of two of the finest contemporary scholarly studies of Augustine:
Allan Fitzgerald’s Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia (grand rapids: eerdmans, 1999), and Peter
Brown’s Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, rev. ed. (Berkeley: university of California Press, 2000).
3. Patricia Fortini Brown, “Carpaccio’s St. Augustine in His Study: A Portrait within a Portrait,” Augus-
tine in Iconography, 507–37, argues that Carpaccio based his Augustine figure on the appearance of Cardinal
Bessarion (1403–1473), bishop of nicaea, who spent key parts of his career in Venice.
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