Augustine and the Disciplines: From Cassiciacum to Confessions. Edited by KARLA POLLMANN and MARK VESSEY.

Abstract

This learned and very precisely argued and footnoted book is not intended for the novice or the dabbler. The volume originated at a conference held in Villanova University, Pennsylvania, in November 2000. It was designed to illustrate the way in which Augustine was a purveyor of ancient literary culture, above all to illustrate precisely the gradual way in which biblical culture, as defined above all in De doctrina Christiana, came to replace secular culture in his thought. The book consists of eight articles preceded by a very useful introduction by Mark Vessey, which outlines the main interests of the articles. It divides neatly into three subsections. Part I (chs. 2 and 3) is entitled ‘Honesta studia: Classrooms without Walls’. Neil McLynn discusses ‘Disciplines of Discipleship in Late Antique Education: Augustine and Gregory Nazianzen’. This is followed by Catherine Conybeare, ‘The Duty of a Teacher: Liminality and Discipline in Augustine's De ordine’. Part II follows under the general rubric ‘Disciplinarum libri: The Canon in Question’. It contains an article by Danuta R. Shanzer, ‘Augustine's Disciplines: Silent diutius Musae Varronis?’ This is followed by William E. Klingshirn on ‘Divination and the Disciplines of Knowledge according to Augustine’. Chapter 6 concludes part II with a piece by Philip Burton entitled ‘The Vocabulary of the Liberal Arts in Augustine's Confessions’. Part III, ‘Doctrina christiana: Beyond the Disciplines’, contains a piece by Catherine M. Chin, ‘The Grammarian's Spoils: De Doctrina Christiana and the Contexts of Literary Education’. Then comes chapter 8 by Stefan Herbruggen Walter on ‘Augustine's Critique of Dialectic: Between Ambrose and the Arians’. Finally, Karla Pollmann writes on ‘Augustine's Hermeneutics as a Universal Discipline?’ Interestingly, of all nine contributors only Philip Burton holds a theological post, while Catherine Chin instructs in church history. This means that the approach is likely to be literary and philological—and so indeed it turns out to be. Almost inevitably in a work of this type the difficulty is to discover a common standpoint. This makes the introduction by Mark Vessey of peculiar importance as it enables the reader to steer his way through the at times tangled web of the differing articles.