Veiled Desire: Augustine on Women by Kim Power

Abstract

750book reviews counter with the Christian Platonists of MUan, and ultimately the reversion to a more sophisticated form ofhis childhood beUefs. Each ofthese stages is labeled a "myth." The final "imperial myth" seems to boU down to the belief in an omnipotent God to whom aU must be subject. This in turn is what upholds the social status quo of power and submission throughout most of subsequent history. The final section selects some ofAugustine's teachings which are deemed to be central. Predestination is discussed at length. The author goes on to show that the non-phUosophicaUy based ideas of the faU and original sin complete the circle of human impotence.We cannot even begin to save ourselves without God's grace. Scott concludes that whUe Augustine's system is admirably consistent, the ultimate flaw comes down to the question of why there was a fall in the first place, whether it be angeUc or human. WhUe there are a few factual errors, e.g., Nebridius never became a bishop but probably died even before Augustine was ordained a priest (p. 88),the work offers a clear presentation of some ofAugustine's principal lines ofthought.The author acknowledges that there are many areas ofAugustine's thought that he does not take into consideration. I think, however, that these unavoidable omissions in the end detract from the book. In his conclusion, he speaks of the "atomistic souls" ofAugustine's thought which have given rise to western individuaUsm .A consideration ofhis views on the Church and Christian community would have tempered such a generalization. Western tradition, like this book, has not equally developed aU the many facets of Augustine's masterful synthesis. WhUe the work is insightful from a phUosophical point of view, it does not convey the fire at the heart of Augustine 's Ufe and thought.The not very phUosophical category of love is conspicuous by its absence. Robert B. Eno, S.S. The Catholic University ofAmerica (Publishedposthumously) Veiled Desire: Augustine on Women. By Kim Power. (New York: Continuum. 1996. Pp. xi, 328. $27.50.) Kim Power suggests (p. 17) that St.Augustine of Hippo might not only have been the first psychologist but also the first postmodernist, for his work can carry "aU meanings to aU readers." Power offers her own perspective on the ancient saint, one informed by Mary Douglas's anthropology, Kleinian psychology, Jungian Archetypal theory, and the sensitivities of contemporary feminism. Power writes as a psychologist and feminist theologian with the fundamental aim of"critiquing structures which constrain both men and women to remain haU-human, and demonstrating how interpretations of sexual difference are central to Christian anthropology" (p. 14). In this book she tries to show thatAu- book reviews751 gustine set up a theological symbol system which not only echoed but also reinforced the prejudices ofhis own age and contributed toward the subordination of women in succeeding centuries. I found the work dtfficult to review. It is a long book, poorly structured and excessively endnoted (the diUgent reader wiU, at times, be flicking backwards and forwards from the main text at every new sentence).Whilst aUowing for the author's feminist intentions, I found her relentless polemic against Augustine tiring and actuaUy rather duU after a while. Her hermeneutical method proceeds by examining Augustine's experience, offering a modern psychological interpretation of it, and then giving an explanation of the theology that allegedly results. But I have some serious doubts about this. Firstly, psychological categories such as "denial," "repression," "the grief process," belong within distinctly modern interpretations of the human psyche, and we cannot with confidence transport these interpretations onto a culture and a time which is essentiaUy strange to us. Secondly, Power's preference for psychological explanations underrates the importance of the Bible and Judaeo-Christian thought forms onAugustine. For example,is it really plausible to suggest thatAugustine's hostility to goddess worship reflected his fears of the autonomous, fertile woman, and that his hangups led him to substitute for the sexual Roman goddesses an asexual Mary (p. 208)? Was it not more likely that he had scriptural and theological problems with the goddesses? I was unconvinced by the central thesis of the book...