Review: Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo

by Peter Brown

University of California Press, Berkeley, California,  1967 & 2000     576 pp.

Peter Brown first published the excellent biography, “Augustine of Hippo” in 1967. Then in 1975 and 1990 researchers in France found more than 50 previously unknown letters and sermons that Brown calls “the living voice of Augustine the bishop.”

After study with the new materials, Brown republished his book in 2000. Rather than rewrite, he added an Epilogue with some analysis and commentary on how the letters and sermons changed his earlier impressions of Augustine. Generally, the biographer finds his subject not so severe an authority figure as previously thought.

Augustine lived for 74 to 76 years during the second half of the 4th Century and the first third of the 5th. These were Pauline-focused years for the Catholic Church and years of vigorous competition with pagan, Manichaean, Platonic, and neo-Platonic belief systems.

The biography details Augustine’s relationship with many of the other belief systems in a way not so clearly expressed in The Confessions, and provides illuminating context for his writings. In addition, Brown provides information on Augustine’s family relationships that does not appear in The Confessions. Our CSS library has both versions of this biography.

-- submitted by Sylvia Hawley

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