A Review of Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo

A Review of Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo

Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo is a dense, scholarly work outlining the entire life of the Catholic bishop. The University of California Press in Berkeley, California published the work in 1967. My version was the 1973 second paperback printing, found in the University library. Its smallish, scholarly, serifed, typewritten font allows for a instant respect for the subject matter: the words are at first imposing, but then revealing as their serious tone complements the complexity of the text. The pages are studded with footnotes, filling out this work with evidence of Brown’s exhaustive research. There is a three-page preface before the work, and, after the work, a seventeen-page bibliography, and ten-page index.

Brown’s book is organized, like any scholarly biography, chronologically according to Augustine’s life. It is separated into five parts, each corresponding to significant portions of Augustine’s life: his pagan life, his conversion, his actions against the Donatists, his actions against Pelagians, and his final legacy and death. Each part opens with a chronological table of events both directly involving Augustine and the world he lived in.

The first part begins with “Africa,” a chapter detailing the section of northern Africa: its Greco-Roman literary and political history, painting a picture of the world Augustine came from. The next chapter, titled “Monica,” describes Augustine’s parents, particularly his mother, and their religious beliefs and socioeconomic status. “Education,” the third chapter, is about the future bishop’s early education, focusing on his introduction to his favorite school subject, Latin literature. T...

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...uum: Writing the ‘City of God,’” rather than just “City of God.” (This chapter is actually misprinted in the table of contents as “Opus Magnum” rather than “Magnum Opus,” a small error, but one easy enough to catch in proofreading, for this second paperback edition. Also, Brown has a penchant for Latin or French phrases, inserted randomly to convey special meaning; this could be forgivable if they were translated or explained, even in the spacious footnotes: they are not, leaving the layman reader frequently confused and agitated. But, this book is not intended for the layman; it is a scholarly work, and most readers would be in his field of antiquity, and most probably know Latin, and be more acquainted with familiar French phrases. Augustine of Hippo is not perfect, but it is an extremely good biography, being both exceedingly thorough and fully captivating.