It has been over a decade since the first edition of The Cambridge Companion to Augustine was published. In that time, reflection on Augustine's life and labors has continued to bear much fruit: significant new studies into major aspects of his thinking have appeared, as well as studies of his life and times and new translations of his work. This new edition of the Companion, which replaces the earlier volume, has eleven new chapters, revised versions of others, and a comprehensive (...) updated bibliography. It will furnish students and scholars of Augustine with a rich resource on a philosopher whose work continues to inspire discussion and debate. (shrink)

Why are we sometimes drawn to our own pain, fascinated with our own melancholy? How is it that we can choose to injure ourselves and to rebel against our innate hunger for wholeness and perfection? This article discusses St. Augustine’s understanding of self-loathing and how it stems from the Fall and a consequent false love of self. Augustine analyzed sin as a way of establishing myself as my own sovereign, creating an idol which must eventually be pulled down if I (...) am to be made whole. For Augustine, then, sin destroys that which had already become tarnished through his own bad choices. However, he also taught that the incarnate Word steps into this vicious cycle of self-destruction in order to call each person into a conscious and confessional relationship with himself. (shrink)

Augustine of Hippo's The City of God is generally considered to be one of the key works of Late Antiquity. Written in response to allegations that Christianity had brought about the decline of Rome, Augustine here explores themes in history, political science, and Christian theology, and argues for the truth of Christianity over competing religions and philosophies. This Companion volume includes specially-commissioned essays by an international team of scholars that provide new insights into The City of God. Offering commentary on (...) each of this massive work's 22 books chapters, they sequentially and systematically explore The City of God as a whole. Collectively, these essays demonstrate the development and coherence of Augustine's argument. The volume will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of ancient and contemporary theology, philosophy, cultural studies, and political theory. (shrink)

Este artículo examina tres momentos de éxtasis, según han quedado recogidos en los libros 6-9 de las "Confesiones". Los relatos de las conversiones de Agustín a lo largo de las "Confesiones" están claramente señalados por tres compromisos intelectuales: el maniqueísmo, el neoplatonismo y el cristianismo. Sostiene que Agustín usa la experiencia del éxtasis para señalar cada una de estas tres fases de su odisea espiritual. Más aún, al hacer esto, este método de argumentación ilumina una escena memorable que, a primera (...) vista, no encaja fácilmente en la historia de Agustín: la de Alipio en los espectáculos. (shrink)

Expelled from Moscow in 1922, Boris Vysheslavtsev spent most of his life at the Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. This volume captures what was most dear to Vysheslavtsev during those fruitful years: the nature of freedom and the working out of an anthropology that is able to make sense of power, suffering, and what he calls the “tragically sublime,” as well as the human longing for immortality. The issues Vysheslavtsev poses here are clearly marked by his response to Soviet ideology, (...) opening with these words: “The main problem in the world today is the problem of freedom and slavery, of freedom and tyranny—anyway, this has always been the main theme of Russian philosophy”. If the questions with which he opens are peculiarly Russian, the answers provided throughout are confidently Christian. For, Vysheslavtsev sees the human person’s imago Dei and the role of sanctifying grace in the world as the most convincing arguments against all forms of unjust authority and despair. (shrink)

Bringing decades of expertise to his examination of many diverse issues in the history of philosophy, Sweeney begins with Émil Bréhier’s criticism that “Christian” and “philosophy” are mutually exclusive in both content and method. Sweeney places himself firmly in the middle of this century’s Thomistic renewal by arguing that no philosophy is absolutely free from belief and, as such, philosophy is only enriched in serving revealed truth. Sweeney, with Maritain and others, accordingly reads all of Greek philosophy as preparing the (...) way for Christian revelation. Thus the first of five parts, Christian Philosophy: Fact or Fiction, meets Bréhier’s challenge by examining not only the possibility but the richness of Christian philosophy. (shrink)

Contending that much of modern ethical discourse relies too often on impersonal rules or some outcome-based theory, Jean Porter proposes a new look at the virtues as found in St. Thomas Aquinas. Focusing on the question, "How does one decide to do the right thing?" Porter attempts to demonstrate a theory of morality which lies between perfunctory norms and capricious whims.