A Companion to Augustine - (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World) by Mark Vessey

Book Synopsis

A Companion to Augustine presents a fresh collection of scholarship by leading academics with a new approach to contextualizing Augustine and his works within the multi-disciplinary field of Late Antiquity, showing Augustine as both a product of the cultural forces of his times and a cultural force in his own right.

• Discusses the life and works of Augustine within their full historical context, rather than privileging the theological context
• Presents Augustine's life, works and leading ideas in the cultural context of the late Roman world, providing a vibrant and engaging sense of Augustine in action in his own time and place
• Opens up a new phase of study on Augustine, sensitive to the many and varied perspectives of scholarship on late Roman culture
• State-of-the-art essays by leading academics in this field

From the Back Cover

Augustine (354-430 CE) stands with Homer, Plato, and Aristotle among the pre-eminent authorities in Western culture, and his Confessions is the only literary work from the early Christian centuries (aside from the New Testament) that is still widely read today. Long recognized as an outstanding Christian theologian, he has in recent decades also acquired a reputation as an exceptional exponent of the culture of the late Roman world, one whose texts vividly bring the era to life.

This companion is the first to present Augustine as a historical figure within an expanded world of late antiquity. State-of-the-art essays by leading specialists in this field provide orientation to his material, social, and intellectual milieu; his life and career; his writings; issues of the day with which he was engaged; and the main phases of his latter-day reception and influence. Each chapter pulls together resources for readers who want to anchor historically important Augustinian ideas and impulses in the complex realities of the author's life and afterlife. The result is a multifaceted portrait of Augustine in action in his own and later times.

Review Quotes

"Overall, this volume is an essential tool for any theologian's or philosopher's library and it will make a nice complementary volume to the Cambridge Companion to Augustine, the second volume of which was just published last year." (Exegetical Tools, 1 October 2015)

"This is a successful Companionthat fills in certain lacunae in the study of Augustine and late antiquity. As such, it is more suited to scholars with specific interests than beginners looking for entry points into Augustine's complex and sophisticated thought." (Religious Studies Review, 1 December 2013)

"As such, this present inter-and intradisciplinary companion to Augustine gathers and presents new flavours within Augustine research, which certainly leaves us yearning for more." (Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses)

"Besides an introduction by Mark Vessey, this truly impressive volume has seven parts; each of the parts has many articles by some of the finest Augustinian scholars and historians of late antiquity . . . All told, the volume is a fine contribution to Augustinian studies by some of the best scholars of the present day." (Catholic Historical Review, 1 January 2013)

"For those of us who teach Augustine on a regular basis, but who are not members of the sprawling familia of scholars who have structured their research agendas around the work of this fascinating and deeply influential late antique bishop, this volume is a treasure trove of judicious assessments and learned insights. It would not be difficult to structure a veryworthwhile seminar on the age of Augustine using its contents, particularly Parts I-V. Mark Vessey has performed an exceptional service by marshalling this legion of specialists to produce what will surely be one of the most important resources for the study of Augustine for many decades to come." (Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 16 February 2013)

"Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through rearchers/faculty." (Choice, 1 November 2012)

About the Author

Mark Vessey is Professor of English and Principal of Green College at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Latin Christian Writers in Late Antiquity and Their Texts (2005), and has edited Augustine and the Disciplines: From Cassiciacum to Confessions (2005) and The Calling of the Nations: Exegesis, Ethnography, and Empire in a Biblical-Historic Present (2011).