Summary: A biography of Augustine focusing on him being from Africa.
It has been about 10 years since I have read a introduction to Augustine and then a few years ago I read Oden’s How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind. Augustine the African is similar to Oden’s book in that it is particularly working to show how the Augustine culture rooted in Africa impacted his thinking.
This was not a traditional biography, but there was plenty of biographical background for those who might not have much background on Augustine. Augustine was born in African as the son of a low level official. His family not well off, but they did have enough resources that Augustine was able to get an education locally before going to further education in Carthage and then eventually in Rome and Milan. (The family was not well off enough to educate his siblings.)
What I found most interesting about the book was how human Augustine was portrayed. He was very human, brilliant, but human. Like many who grew up outside of the main cultural center without much money, he had a chip on his shoulder. He also had a passion to succeed. Between those two, much of the bad decisions in Augustine’s life was connected to one of the other. He also had a good bit of disappointment and tragedy. His mother did a lot to get him where he was, but she also got rid of the mother of his son to try to him to make an adventitious marriage. That marriage didn’t happen, but his relationship with (the never named women) ended. Over a few years his mother, and then several of his close friends, and eventually his son, died. Those tragedies impacted his in many ways.
After the main introduction of his early life, the longer focus of the book was more thematic. There were good discussions about the fight between the Donatists and Pelagianism. Those fights are often framed theolgoically, but not culturally contextuallized. Conybeare contextualizes those theological discussions and shows those and other issues like the common language of Punic, his pastoral work navigating social class and politics and the wider issues with the fall of Rome and the changes in the social system around him were influenced by the local African culture.
There is a real irony to me that US Christianity has often done such a good job contextualizing both to the culture around it and in global missions, but often seem incapable of understanding that all Christianity is contextualized. This is, in some ways, a great book in understanding how the history of Christianity was influenced by local contextualization in unforeseen ways. It is important to understanding Augustine as a brilliant, but flawed thinker was influenced by culture and made decisions that were not all universally good decisions. Augustine made bad administrative decisions, he appointed pastors that had bad character and became abusive. He used his own experience with women and sex to inform his thinking, but then universalized it in ways that were not helpful for all.
But he also attempted to be pastoral and care for those under his spiritual responsibility in many good ways. I have some real disagreements with Augustine, and probably even more with those who have used Augustine to justify their positions. But I had a lot more understanding about why some of those positions were taken and a lot more grace for the real tragedy of his life than I had previously.
Augustine the African was very readable and engaging. I listened to this on audiobook read by the author after I found it on sale. Conybeare isn’t the most exciting reader, but her narration was fine. The content was great and either print or audio are good options.
Augustine the African by Catherine Conybeare Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook