Christ Meets Me Everywhere

This book studies the earliest biblical reading practices of Augustine of Hippo (354-430), the greatest of the Latin Church Fathers. It examines works from the first fifteen years of Augustine's Christian life in order to follow the course of his development. His reflections on the craft of hermeneutics advanced not only specifically theological reading practices but also the humane art of textual interpretation. Augustine's rationale for figurative reading in the tens of thousands of Scripture references that filled hundreds of sermons, letters, and treatises made him the most widely read commentator on the Christian Scriptures in the west for more than a thousand years.

Over the course of the past two centuries, Augustine's ecclesiology has been subject to interpretations that overdraw the distinction between the visible and invisible dimensions of the church, sometimes reducing the church to a purely spiritual, invisible reality, over against the visible church celebrating the sacraments; the empirical community is incidental, at best, and can be discarded. By contrast, this book argues that the church is a mystery that is visible and invisible. Far from discarding the visible, Augustine places greater emphasis on the empirical church as his thought develops. This study traces Augustine’s ecclesiology from early writings to later works in order to demonstrate this thesis. His early thought is heavily influenced by Platonism and tends to focus on the ascent of the individual soul. After his study of Scripture in the 390s, Augustine gives priority to participation in the visible, sacramental community. In his mature thought, the church is one mystery (mysterium, sacramentum) revealed by Scripture, with visible and invisible aspects. This book explores Augustine’s exegesis of biblical images of the church, such as body of Christ, bride of Christ, city of God, and sacrifice, in order to show how the visible community is intrinsic to the mystery of the church.

Putting on Christ aims to situate Augustine’s early soteriology and sacramental theology within the context of his personal history and intellectual development. Beginning with an extended analysis of the theology of salvation and sacramental efficacy contained within Augustine’s Confessions (ca. 400), the study then traces the maturation of his views on these matters, beginning with his earliest extant works, the Cassicacum dialogues (ca. 386). The journey entails treating Augustine’s earliest discussions of Christ’s person and his saving work, as well as the believer’s subjective experience of conversion and salvation. As Augustine’s corpus shifts from philosophical dialogues to explicitly apologetic and scriptural-exegetical works, so too does his soteriological lexicon expand to include concepts and terms that will later become his stock-in-trade, such as the virtue of humilitas. And as his roles in the North African Church come to include participation in the presbyterate and the episcopacy, so too does his engagement expand to a wider set of polemical contexts, both anti-Manichaean and anti-Donatist. Putting on Christ tracks these and many other aspects of Augustine’s maturing thought, showing where lines of both continuity and development lie and aiming to uncover their reasons. In doing so, it reveals Augustine to be a thinker and a teacher who continued to hone his understanding of salvation, the very heartbeat of Christian life and thought, as well as its relation to various other aspects of the Christian theological worldview, from Christology and anthropology to sacramental theology and ecclesiology.

The Son of God is the wisdom of God Augustine's love of wisdom drove him to Christ—and wisdom remained central to his thought. Modern biblical scholars and theologians have much to learn from one of Christianity's most prominent and prolific theologians. Retrieval of Augustine can revive and renew thinking on wisdom. In Christ, the Way, Benjamin T. Quinn recovers and evaluates Augustine's rich writing on wisdom. While many have acknowledged sapientia (wisdom) as central in Augustine, few have offered a full treatment of his definition of wisdom and how it ordered his thought. Quinn remedies this need, tracing the development of Augustine's thought from his earliest reflections to De Trinitate, his most systematic treatment of wisdom. For Augustine, sapientia is the incarnate Christ, who by the Spirit enlightens all God's people to see clearly, live virtuously, and participate in God—thereby restoring his people to his image. Quinn then brings Augustine into dialogue with contemporary wisdom scholarship, displaying where his biblically rooted, Christocentric, faith--first approach holds rich insights for scholars and Christians today.

Presents a doctrine of Scripture based on Hebrews in dialogue with Augustine and Calvin What vision of biblical authority arises from Scripture's own use of Scripture? This question has received surprisingly little attention from theologians seeking to develop a comprehensive doctrine of Scripture. Today When You Hear His Voice by Gregory W. Lee fills this gap by listening carefully to the Epistle to the Hebrews. Lee illuminates the unique way that Hebrews appropriates Old Testament texts as he considers the theological relationship between salvation history and scriptural interpretation. He illustrates these dynamics through extended treatments of Augustine and Calvin, whose contrasting perspectives on the covenants, Israel, and the literal and figural senses provide theological categories for appreciating how Hebrews innovatively presents Scripture as God's direct address in the contemporary moment.

Augustine's Early Thought on the Redemptive Function of Divine Judgment considers the relationship between Augustine's account of God's judgment and his theology of grace in his early works. How does God use his law and the penal consequences of its transgression in the service of his grace, both personally and through his 'agents' on earth? Augustine reflected on this question from different perspectives. As a teacher and bishop, he thought about the nature of discipline and punishment in the education of his pupils, brothers, and congregants. As a polemicist against the Manichaeans and as a biblical expositor, he had to grapple with issues regarding God's relationship to evil in the world, the violence God displays in the Old Testament, and in the death of his own Son. Furthermore, Augustine meditated on the way God's judgment and grace related in his own life, both before and after his conversion. Bart van Egmond follows the development of Augustine's early thought on judgment and grace from the Cassiacum writings to the Confessions. The argument is contextualized both against the background of the earlier Christian tradition of reflection on the providential function of divine chastisement, and the tradition of psychagogy that Augustine inherited from a variety of rhetorical and philosophical sources. This study expertly contributes to the ongoing scholarly discussion on the development of Augustine's doctrine of grace, and to the conversation on the theological roots of his justification of coercion against the Donatists.

The definitive compendium of Cavadini’s essays on Augustine Visioning Augustine offers readers an expertly selected collection of essays exploring the text and history of the theology of Saint Augustine. Prominent scholar and essayist, John Cavadini, offers modern audiences an innovative framework for understanding Augustine, integrating articles and essays on significant texts, historical and contemporary perspectives and insights into Augustine’s development as a theologian. Examining themes such as the transformation of the human will in De doctrina Christiana and Augustine’s critique of philosophy in City of God, Cavadini provides clear and accessible smaller-size essays that serve as entry points for those interested in Augustinian scholarship. The author’s meditations on Augustinian texts invite readers to re-evaluate their interpretations and learn about the subtle and sophisticated vocabulary of Augustine. An encounter with Augustine the Christian theologian, Cavadini contends, is not a narrowly focused parochial experience, but instead a challenge to enlarge our horizons. Written by one of the most prominent Augustinian scholars and essayists in the field Addresses ecumenical and cultural issues that weaken contemporary interest in Christian faith Offers modern readers historical context on Augustinian theology Provides a single-volume collection of Cavadini’s essays on Augustine written over the course of more than two decades Accessible prose and intellectual sensitivity to modern theological problemsmake Visioning Augustine an indispensable volume for graduate students, scholars and professionals in all areas of Christian theology.

Examines what theological reading is, and how it shapes the interpretation of Biblical text through explicit focus on the reader.

Early Christian theology posited a strict division between animals and humans. Nevertheless, animal figures abound in early Christian literature and art—from Augustine's renowned "wonder at the agility of the mosquito on the wing," to vivid exegeses of the six days of creation detailed in Genesis—and when they appear, the distinctions between human and animal are often dissolved. How, asks Patricia Cox Miller, does one account for the stunning zoological imagination found in a wide variety of genres of ancient Christian texts? In the Eye of the Animal complicates the role of animals in early Christian thought by showing how textual and artistic images and interpretive procedures actually celebrated a continuum of human and animal life. Synthesizing early Christian studies, contemporary philosophy, animal studies, ethology, and modern poetry, Miller identifies two contradictory strands in early Christian thinking about animals. The dominant thread viewed the body and soul of the human being as dominical, or the crowning achievement of creation; animals, with their defective souls, related to humans only as reminders of the brutish physical form. However, the second strand relied upon the idea of a continuum of animal life, which enabled comparisons between animals and humans. This second tendency, explains Miller, arises particularly in early Christian literature in which ascetic identity, the body, and ethics intersect. She explores the tension between these modes by tracing the image of the animal in early Christian literature, from the ethical animal behavior on display in Basil of Caesarea's Hexaemeron and the anonymous Physiologus, to the role of animals in articulating erotic desire, and from the idyllic intimacy of monks and animals in literature of desert ascetism to early Christian art that envisions paradise through human-animal symbiosis.