Augustine and the disciplines - Karla Pollmann

Augustine and the Disciplines takes its cue from Augustine's theory of the liberal arts to explore the larger question of how the Bible became the focus of medieval culture in the West. Augustine himself became increasingly aware that an ambivalent attitude towards knowledge and learning was inherent in Christianity. By facing the intellectual challenge posed by this tension he arrived at a new theory of how to interpret the Bible correctly. The topicsinvestigated here include: Augustine's changing relationship with the 'disciplines', as he moved from an attempt at their Christianization (in the philosophical dialogues of Cassiciacum) to a radical reshaping of them within a Christian world-view (in the De Doctrina Christiana and Confessiones); the factors thatprompted and facilitated his change of perspective; and the ways in which Augustine's evolving theory reflected contemporary trends in Christian pedagogy.

Karla Pollmann is Professor of Classics and Head of the School of Humanities at the University of Reading.

Mark Vessey is Professor of English, University of British Columbia.

As a whole, Augustine and the Disciplines reads well, and it is wise to read first the Vessey introduction and then read it again when one is finished with the essays. His vision of the continuity among the essays helps the reader to 're-imagine' the conference itself and engage in the various essays as a common project aimed at solving some difficult - but important - questions in Augustinian scholorship
today.

E. Tyler Graham, Religion

This fine collection of essays...is a welcome, well-written and highly interesting study on the development of Augustine's thought within the context of late antique education, without, however, reducing his work to that context alone.

W. F. Smelik, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

...[a] tremendous amount of scholarship ... a book not only for historians of the disciplines, but for all those interested in late-antique intellectual culture and education ... [an] informative and inspiring little volume.

The Classical Review

The chief value of this collection of essays consists in the variety of exemplary methods, historical, philological, philosophical, which are employed to study the shift in Augustine's attitudes to the liberal arts between AD 386 and 396 and the larger question of his place in the history of western liberal arts.

Ecclesiastical History