An indispensable resource for those looking to understand Augustine’s place in religious and cultural heritage

Augustine towers over Western life, literature, and culture—both sacred and secular. His ideas permeate conceptions of the self from birth to death and have cast a long shadow over subsequent Christian thought. But as much as tradition has sprung from Augustinian roots, so was Augustine a product of and interlocutor with traditions that preceded and ran contemporary to his life.

This extensive volume examines and evaluates Augustine as both a receiver and a source of tradition. The contributors—all distinguished Augustinian scholars influenced by J. Patout Burns and interested in furthering his intellectual legacy—survey Augustine’s life and writings in the context of North African tradition, philosophical and literary traditions of antiquity, the Greek patristic tradition, and the tradition of Augustine’s Latin contemporaries. These various pieces, when assembled, tell a comprehensive story of Augustine’s significance, both then and now.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part One: Augustine and the North African Tradition

 1. Augustine’s Rhetorical Reading of Genesis in Confessiones 11–12

  Michael Cameron

 2. Augustine and the North African Liturgical Reading Tradition

  Andrew McGowan

 3. Augustine and Tertullian

  Geoffrey D. Dunn

 4. Augustine and the North African Martyriological Tradition

  William Tabbernee

 5. Augustine and Optatus of Milev

  Alden Bass

Part Two: Augustine and the Philosophical and Literary Tradition

 6. Augustine and the Platonists

  John Peter Kenney

 7. Augustine and Porphyry

  Thomas Clemmons

 8. Augustine and the End of Classical Ethics

  James R. Wetzel

 9. Augustine and the Classical Latin Literary Tradition

  Dennis Trout

Part Three: Augustine and the Greek Patristic Tradition

 10. Augustine’s Reception of Origen

  Joseph W. Trigg

 11. Augustine’s Anti-Pelagian Reception of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus

  Mark DelCogliano

Part Four: Augustine and His Latin Contemporaries/Successors

 12. Augustine and Marius Victorinus

  Stephen A. Cooper

 13. Augustine and Ambrose

  John C. Cavadini

 14. Augustine and Ambrosiaster

  Theodore de Bruyn

 15. Augustine’s Enchiridion 26.100 and the Ninth-Century Predestination Debate

  Brian Matz

Contributors: Alden Bass, Michael Cameron, John C. Cavadini, Thomas Clemmons, Stephen A. Cooper, Theodore de Bruyn, Mark DelCogliano, Geoffrey D. Dunn, John Peter Kenney, Brian Matz, Andrew McGowan, William Tabbernee, Joseph W. Trigg, Dennis Trout, and James R. Wetzel.