Reading Augustine in the Reformation: The Flexibility of Intellectual Authority in Europe, 1500–1620. By Arnoud S. Q. Visser. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. xii + 240 pp. $74.00 cloth (original) (raw)

Reading Augustine Through Erasmus' Eyes

Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook, 2008

This article investigates Erasmus’ edition of the collected works of Augustine of Hippo (Basel 1528–1529) as an example of the interaction between the scholarly culture of Renaissance humanism and the Reformation. It examines how Erasmus’ reservations about Augustine’s thought informed his presentation of the church father as a brilliant bishop but a mediocre writer. It shows how Erasmus’ humanist perspective and theological agenda guided—and at times misguided—his editorial practice, such as in the assessment of authenticity. The result was an edition in which Augustine’s works were framed by a highly ideological textual apparatus, which proved especially controversial in post-Tridentine Catholic circles.

How Catholic was Augustine? Confessional Patristics and the Survival of Erasmus in the Counter-Reformation

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2010

This article explores the impact of Catholic confessionalism on humanist scholarship by focusing on the edition of Augustine of Hippo’s collected works produced by the Leuven theologians in 1577–8. This edition replaced Erasmus’ controversial version and claimed to provide an authoritative, Catholic text. Yet an analysis of the paratextual presentation shows that the result was a neutralised Augustine, rather than a paragon of Tridentine Catholicism. The editors avoid controversial theology, while silently copying substantial parts of Erasmus’ censurae and marginal notes. Local politics and publishing interests explain the intriguing survival of Erasmus and exemplify the disparate implementation of Trent in Catholic Europe.

"The 'Omnipresent' Augustine": The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, 3 vols., ed. Karla Pollmann and Willemien Otten. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013

Reviews in Religion and Theology 21/4 (2014): 454-62

This review article explores a new indispensable reference work on the reception of Augustine. It offers an overview of its content, structure, and methodology, as well as a critical assessment of its overall contribution to the study of Augustine. Goethe once remarked that, in the world, there are just a few voices, yet so many echoes. Augustine is definitely among the ‘few voices’, which have provoked all manner of friendly and unfriendly echoes. It is particularly important to realize that, apart from explicit citations and references in western literature, Augustine has also profoundly shaped medieval and modern culture through the subtle dissemination of his ideas into various spheres of life. This reference work not only provides a description of the current state of the reception of Augustine, but also adds the new results of the diligent work of the contributing researchers and identifies several topics that still need to be investigated.

Augustine beyond the Book

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/bsch Augustine beyond the Book: Intermediality, Transmediality, and Reception