Theology, Christian, Christian Biography, History of Christianity

Augustine: A New Biography

Name: Augustine: A New Biography
Author: James J. O'donnell
ISBN: 9780060535384

by James J. O'donnell

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Overview

Saint Augustine — the celebrated theologian who served as Bishop of Hippo from 396 C.E. until his death in 430 C.E. — is widely regarded as one of the most influential thinkers in the Western world. His autobiography, Confessions, remains among the most important religious writings in the Christian tradition. In this eye-opening and eminently readable biography, renowned historical scholar James J. O’Donnell picks up where Augustine himself left off to offer a fascinating, in-depth portrait of an unparalleled politician, writer, and churchman in a time of uncertainty and religious turmoil.

Augustine is a triumphant chronicle of an extraordinary life that is certain to surprise and enlighten even those who believed they knew the complex and remarkable man of God.

Synopsis

O'Donnell (classics, Georgetown U.) adds to existing scholarship on Augustine by focusing on his life in Hippo, where Augustine spent 40 years as a priest and bishop. O'Donnell reviews the Confessions from the vantage point of these years and scrutinizes Augustine's sermons and letters from that period to develop portraits of his colleagues and contemporaries. To encourage additional scholarship, O'Donnell includes a final chapter with advice for further study. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The New York Times - G. W. Bowersock

O'Donnell has undertaken to do what needed to be done. He has done it with brio and erudition, although a little less brio and a little more erudition would have been welcome. His long commitment to Augustine's life and works is reflected not only in his commentary on the ''Confessions'' and in this new biography but equally in a well-maintained Web site, which he claims was the first home page for any saint on the World Wide Web. His biography by no means replaces Peter Brown's masterpiece, even for a new generation of readers, but it is the work of an impressive Augustinian, eager to promote his subject.

About the Author, James J. O'donnell

James J. O'Donnell is a distinguished classicist and has published widely on the history and culture of the late antiquities. A longtime professor of classics at the University of Pennsylvania, he has been provost of Georgetown University since 2002, is a fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, and served as president of the American Philological Association. He is a graduate of Princeton and received his Ph.D. from Yale. He hails from New Mexico and travels the world in search of traces of the ancient past—and fine dark chocolate.

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Editorials

G. W. Bowersock

Publishers Weekly

O'Donnell, provost at Georgetown University and editor of the definitive edition of Augustine's Confessions, is admirably qualified to chronicle the life of the man who wrote history's most famous autobiography. But in this book, suffused with the methods (though thankfully not the tortured vocabulary) of postmodern critical suspicion, the Confessions is more hindrance than help at seeing the "many Augustines" who have been lost behind Augustine's own self-presentation. The Augustines that O'Donnell sketches include the aspiring social climber who transferred his ambitions from society to church; the bitter and dogged polemicist; and "Don Quixote of Hippo," whose "fantasy world of earliest Christianity has come eerily to be real." O'Donnell's pace is quick, his writing is sharp and there are lively and provocative interpretations on nearly every page. But his jaundiced portrait does not quite seem to do justice to the African bishop's perennial appeal, which O'Donnell acknowledges in characteristically backhanded fashion: "Call it codependency or Stockholm syndrome at its mildest; call it religious partisanship at its most extreme, but even Augustine's severest modern critics find something attractive or fascinating about the man and his work." Readers of this book will certainly wonder why. For O'Donnell, it seems, familiarity has bred contempt. (Apr. 5) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Outstanding Augustine scholar O'Donnell (classics, Georgetown Univ.) here provides a contemporary understanding of St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), whose influence on Western Christianity has been enormous. O'Donnell, who previously edited a three-volume definitive edition of Augustine's Confessions, has written numerous academic books, and maintains a web site. Born out of a series of lectures, this biography is not an easy read and presupposes some knowledge of the saint. Over 200 biographies of Augustine have been written in English, but O'Donnell's is unique in that it asks the reader to rethink Augustine's life, times, and writings in light of more recent scholarship. (Not all of Augustine's voluminous writings have survived, but in the latter part of the 20th century, a collection of letters and another of his sermons were discovered.) In a thoroughly documented text that interweaves the religious, historical, and political contexts of Augustine's time, O'Donnell leads the reader to unfamiliar but articulately expressed speculations. Recommended as an important addition to the Augustinian corpus, especially for academic and religious collections.-Anna M. Donnelly, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

In a lyrical, multilayered biography, a Georgetown classics scholar creates this generation's Augustine. O'Donnell's study of Augustine's life, work and influence would be worth the price of entry if it consisted only of the first 86 pages, which offer one of the most nuanced and sensitive readings ever of the Confessions (including an evenhanded investigation of why Augustine was so obsessed with chastity). O'Donnell reads the Confessions generously, but he also makes clear that the great autobiography is a literary work, not an unmediated picture of Augustine's life. Throughout, O'Donnell draws on cutting-edge scholarship-including the hypothesis, based on Pierre-Marie Hombert's 2000 study "New Investigations in Augustinian Chronology," that Augustine may have risen to prominence later than scholars previously thought. There are no hints of hagiography here: indeed, O'Donnell likes to laugh a little at the great saint, and in a chapter entitled "Augustine Unvarnished," he lays bear the African bishop's ambition and social-climbing. O'Donnell's rendering of the historical context is as important as his exegesis of Augustine. He limns fourth-century Christianity in order to show both how revolutionary some of Augustine's own theological doctrines were, and how much those doctrines had to be "tamed" before they were embraced by the church. Along the way, he explains how Augustine literally wrote (he dictated, mainly) and explores "Augustine's tongue" (that is, late antique Latin). And O'Donnell shows how Augustine remains germane to our world-"the idea that wisdom . . . lies in the pages of a book" is owed to Augustine, and, even more important, his idea of God still powerfully influenceshow Christians, Jews and Muslims understand the deity. Finally, this magisterial work is distinguished not only by its innovative scholarship, but also by O'Donnell's elegant style-even the prose in the appendix on "Pursuing Augustine Further" is lovely (recommending Augustine's sermons, the author writes that "Another place to lie in wait for him is in his church on Sunday morning.")A landmark achievement.