Grace, Politics and Desire: Essays on Augustine

Augustine makes his mark in many fields: as political philosopher, biblical exegete, theorist of culture and spiritual autobiographer. His phenomenal range is reflected in this collection of papers. Three essays deal with Augustine’s conversion; his account of the norms of authentic conversion, his psychological analysis of his own conversion, and his conversion as compared with that of Pascal. Others treat his concept of concupiscence, his theories of music, rhetoric and politics, his relation to the Roman Empire of his time, his changing stance towards Neoplatonism and his pluralism, his attitude to poetry, and the principles he employed for the interpretation of Scripture. Contents: Augustine and the Norms of Authentic Conversion; Memory and Scripture in the Conversion of Augustine; Two Converts: Augustine and Pascal; The Body and Human Values in Augustine of Hippo; Justice and Love in the Political Thought of St. Augustine; Augustine and Poetic Exegesis; Augustine’s Methods of Biblical Interpretation; Augustine on Music; Love as Rhetorical Principle: The Relationship Between Content and Style in the Rhetoric of St. Augustine; Religion and Society in the Age of Theodosius; The Background to Augustine’s Denial of Religious Plurality.