Ebook: T&T Clark Companion to Augustine and Modern Theology

The importance of Saint Augustine is difficult to overstate, but scholars keep trying. The fifth-century bishop of Hippo seems to contain the seeds of Western civilization itself. As Jaroslav Pelikan once quipped, the history of the West is but ‘a series of footnotes’ to Augustine’.1 It is true, there has never been
a generation that has not turned to the saint for wisdom – to learn from him, to follow or reject his path and most especially to utilize him as an authority. Every age seeks to measure itself against Augustine, to set his theology as a standard by which we may understand.