A Review of Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo Essay -- Augustine Hippo

A Review of Peter dark-browns Augustine of Hippo Peter Browns Augustine of Hippo is a dense, scholarly work outlining the entire life of the Catholic bishop. The University of California barrack in Berkeley, California published the work in 1967. My version was the 1973 turn paperback printing, found in the University library. Its smallish, scholarly, serifed, typewritten font allows for a instant esteem for the subject matter the words are at first imposing, plainly 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 Browns exhaustive research. There is a three-page preface before the work, and, after the work, a seventeen-page bibliography, and ten-page index. Browns book is organized, like any scholarly biography, chronologically according to Augustines life. It is separated into five pop outs, each corresponding to meaning(a) portions of Augustines life his pagan life, hi s 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 definitive literary and political history, painting a picture of the world Augustine came from. The nigh chapter, titled Monica, describes Augustines parents, particularly his mother, and their religious beliefs and socioeconomic status. Education, the third chapter, is somewhat the future bishops early education, focusing on his introduction to his best-loved school subject, Latin literature. T... ...uum Writing the urban center of God, or else 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 earn 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, release the layman reader frequently confused and agitated. But, this book is not intend for the layman it is a scholarly work, and most readers would be in his subject area 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, be both exceedingly thorough and fully captivating.