Rethinking Augustine's Early Theology

Abstract

Abstract Having been at the centre of a century long debate which cast doubt on the nature of Augustine’s conversion, one might assume that Augustine’s early works (386-96) have now been rescued and given their rightful place. This book suggests that these are now threatened by an equally destructive trend in Augustine scholarship, which, over the last fifty years, has become an almost unquestioned norm of interpretation. This is the idea, fatefully and poignantly depicted by Peter Brown in the chapter of his seminal biography entitled The Lost Future, that the early optimistic and philosophical Augustine was dramatically transformed into the mature, pessimistic theologian of the Fall, original sin, and grace by his reading of Paul in the mid-390s. This interpretation of the first decade of Augustine’s life has since become such an idée fixe in scholarly as well as popular accounts, leaving two very different Augustines: one, the young convert, fired to pursue Wisdom by an optimistic confidence in the rational disciplines of the liberal arts, human free will, and a glorious ideal of perfection; the other, the older and wiser bishop of Hippo, convinced of human fallen ness and of the need for grace to will or to do any good work. This book argues that in order to do justice to Augustine’s conversion, to his early theology and understanding of the Christian life, and to the early works themselves, such caricatures must be resisted. It seeks to demonstrate that there is a fundamental continuity in Augustine’s thought, which does not undergo any dramatic change when he re-reads Paul in the 390s; that there is only one Augustine, for whom human weakness and divine grace were the central axes of his Christian faith and life from the very beginning.