Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (New Edition, with an Epilogue)

566 Pages·2000·24.17 MB·English

by  Peter Brown

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AUGUSTINE
OF HIPPO
A Biography
PETER BROWN
A New Edition
with an Epilogue
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley and Los Angeles
by
3 Queen Squ::~re London \X'C IN }1\ u
<,Peter Brown, I<J67, 2000
All righrc, reserved. No part of thi~ publiution may lw n:produu.xl or
tr<lTl~lllltted tn any form or hy any clcctromc or
mcludmg rccordmg or
rctncv;ll ~ystcm, pnor
L1hrary of Congrc~.~ Catalog C:Jr( Number: 67-11 I
Photosct bv l.eicc~tn
Printed 111 pk
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B&T 18.95
BiographYBrown. Peter Robert Lamont.
Augm:tine Augustine of Hippo: a biograJ
Bro
CONTENTS
Preface to the New Edition vii
Preface ix
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE A
I AFRICA 7
2 MONICA r6
EDUCATION 23
4 'WISDOM 29
MANICHAEISM 35
6 FRIENDS so
7 SUCCESS 54
PART II 386-395
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE B 64
AMBROSE 69
THE PLATONISTS 79
IO 'PHILOSOPHY' 93
rr Christianae Vitae Otium: CASSICIACUM ro8
12 OSTIA I2I
13 Servus Dei: THAGASTE 125
14 Presbyter Ecclesiae Catholicae: HIPPO 131
I 5 THE LOST FUTURE 139
r6 THE 'Confessions' 151
PART III 39 5-410
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE C J78
17 HIPPO RF.GIUS I8J
t8 Sa/uberrima consilia 198
19 Ubi Ecclesia? 207
20 lnstantia 222
21 Disciplina 229
22 Populus Dei 240
2 3 Doctrina Christiana 2 56
24 'sH~K III~ FACE EVU{MORE' 267
PART LV 410-420
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLI;, J) 280
2 5 Senectus Mundi 28 5
26 Magnum ofms et arduum 297
2 7 Civitas peregrina 31 2
28 UNITY J\CHllcVED .)JC
29 PFLAGIUS AND PELAGIANISM 340
30 Causa Gratiae 354
31 Fundatissima Pi des 3 67
PART V 420-430
CHRONOLOGICAL TART.F F 3Rn
32 JULIAN OF ECLi\NULVl 383
3 3 PREDESTINATION 400
34 OLDAC~E 4fl
3 5 THE END OF ROMAN AHUCA 423
J6 DEATH 4.31
EPILOGUE
I NEW EVIDI::,NCE 441
2 NEW DIRECTIONS 482
BIBLIOGRAPHY 521
INDEX 539
PREFACE TO THE
NEW EDITION
I have been led by two considerations to add an Epilogue in two
parts to this reprint of my biography of Augustine. 1 wish to do
justice to the recent discovery of a number of hitherto unknown
letters and sermons of Augustine. T also wish to indicate in what
way~ Augu~tinian ~tudic!:l have chang<:d over the past thirty years. 1
decided not to attempt to incorporate any changes within the
original text of the biography itself. To do this would have been
cumbersome and, in any case, pretentious. The biography was never
meant to be a comprchcr.sivc study of Augustine, valid for all times
and so needing to be kept up to date as if it were a scientific manuaL
It was a book written at a particular time, by a young man Jt a
particular moment in scholarship. Ry appending an Epilogue to a
text that was written in the r9hos, I wished, as it were, to come
upon that young man-a young man half my age-as if meeting him
unexpectedly, on turning a corner. He would, I think, he thrilled to
meet me, and to learn of how much more has been discovered.
Incidents in the life of Augustine of which he knew nothing are now
vividly documented. Modern studies on themes which interested
him greatly now exist in an ahundance of which he had not dared to
dream. Entire new perspectives on the study of Augustine have
opened up, that complement or correct what he first wrote. I hope
that modern readns, also, will experience a similar surprise, though
travelling in the opposite direction. They will leave a text written in
the 196os, to read of aspects of the life of Augustine that have only
become known to us since the new letters and sermons were
published, in 1981 and, again, between 1992 and 1996. They will
also come upon a summary of modern Augustinian scholarship that
will enable them to look back, often from a very different viewing
point, on the book they have just read.
I have left as they are the Chronological Tables inserted in the
text. The reader should know, however, that further English
viii PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
translations now exist for many of the texts mentioned in those
tables. The dating of some works of Augustine has either been
challenged or effectively changed. In themselves these changes are of
minor importance; hut we must remember that the redating even of
minor works, letters and sermons of Augustine inevitably affects our
judgement on his circumstances and on the changes of his thought. I
have not registered such changes in the existing Chronological
Tables, on which the n;ader depended for following my own
narrative. 1 do this in the confidence that the modern works to
which I refer in my Epilogue will pve ample indication of what
translations now exist, and will make clear to the reader in what
arcJs changes in the chronology of Augustine's life and works have
taken place and what the significance of those changes might be.
Finally, in ~l field that change;., as rapidly as docs the study of
Augustine (and especially in these happy days, where the interpreta
tion of newly discovered evidence is at stake) it is necessary to make
plain that, in this Epilogue, I have only been able to take into
consideration works that were available to me, in the United States,
up to r998 and the beginning of 1999.
As with all stages of my study of i\ugu~tine, from the very
beginning, in around 1960, up to the present, this Epilogue would
not have been what it now is if I had not been ahk: to draw upon the
outstanding generosity of fellow-schobrs. Many footnotes that may
seem to the casual reader to be no more than routine expressions of
erudition are for me far more than that: they arc saturated wil"h
warm memories of gratitude and admiration. My particular thanks,
on this occasion, must go to Goulvcn Madcc and to Fram;ois
Dolbeau, who brought their unrivalled knowledge and critical skill
to bear on the final draft of the Epilogue, and to Mark Vessey, who
has read it alertly at every stage. The mistakes, in the Epilogue, as in
the book itself, remain my own.
Princeton University,
Princeton, New Jersey
March I7 I999