Rating: 
Summary: A ponderous classic and author
Review: As a result of his having ballooned up to 425 pounds because of a serious endocrinologoical problem, Augustine was actually known during his lifetime as "Augustine the Hippo." Out of respect to the great Christian thinker and philosopher, they later reverted to the original version of his name.But Augustine's obesity problem aside, The City of God is certainly a weighty and profound volume itself, and I'd like to say that in consideration of the philosophical contributions he made in this book, I have no problem throwing my own not inconsiderable bulk behind it. Also, I suspect that Augustine was actually beatified for founding the first weight-control clinic, certainly an important contribution in and of itself.
Rating:
Summary: Impressive Documentation
Review: Brown's stated purpose with this biography is to tell about the "course and quality" of Augustine' life with a backdrop of the changes in north Africa and in the Roman Empire as a whole. Brown says he wants to show how Augustine himself helped precipitate some of the changes by using the most "up-to-date" treatments of the life Augustine. Peter Brown, writing from All Soul's College at Oxford, England, thoroughly documents the events, activities and inner workings of Augustine. The Bishop of Hippo's story is interwoven with accounts of the state of the Roman Empire as a whole and North Africa, in particular. Brown's telling is so vivid that an artist could chose a stage of Augustine's life and then accurately paint Augustine surrounded by his local counterparts with elements of the Empire in the background. The text is well-documented with most pages having five or more footnotes. The bibliography takes up 18 pages. Brown used primary souces in Latin, as well as, scholarly works in English, German and French. Augustine is presented as a gifted child, and then as a out-going bright young adult who in turn grows into one of the most remarkable religious leaders and writers of all time. Brown writes marvelously interesting chapters and when I thought that he couldn't top the writing and interesting material of one chapter, I would again be fascinated by the next chapter. A helpful feature of the text are the five Chronological Tables, one at the beginning of each major division of the book. The tables list each year with major events, if any, in Augustine's life or the Empire's history. Later tables also list corresponding texts and letters written by Augustine during the year. At times during the reading, I smiled at Brown's choice of works. The words were strange, but the context gave their meaning away. A conventible of Manichees was a gathering and a love-philtre is apparently a love letter or gift. At other times, Brown's writing choices were strange to me and remained strange. Early in the text, Brown made a number of comparisons to the Mandarins of China. Being unfamiliar with Chinese history,the meaning he wanted to convey escaped me. Another cue I missed about Augustine's taking of a concubine. Augstine's family was relatively prosperous and Augustine was unusually close to his mother, Monica. According to Brown, African's of Augustine's time excelled in play-on-words" and as lawyers. Augustine was an excellent student of the law. The Roman Empire had no need for Southerners and Augustine pursued a career teaching Latin rhetoric. Brown does not delve into describing the relationship of Monica and Augustine, while I am sure that other author's have. Their relationship seems an interesting pursuit of study to me and I have my own theory as to why they were so close. My explanation is that Augustine loved order and Monica represented that in his childhood, as opposed to his father, who had a temper. Augustine's story after his conversion is completed dominated by his growth as a Christian, his internal growth and his growth in service and writing. Brown's biography has teachings and quotes of the adult Christian Augustine throughout the text, not just in chronological order. For instance, Brown would tell of an incident in Augustine's younger life and at that time include remarks Augustine made in his Confessions about the same event. For example in Chapter 2, Brown says that to Augustine the evolution of the heart is the real stuff of biography. Augustine's Confessions is his most studied work. According to Brown, the Confessions is the first time a literary work included quotes from what we now know as the bible. I noted that Augustine regarded his Confessions as a therapy or medical treatment. According to Brown, no thinker in the Early Church wa so preoccupied the the nature of human relationships. In contrast, Augustine wrote that nature was God's "dumb show." Besides his literary contributions of general Christian interest, much of Augustine's writings had to do with fighting the heresies. I was much impressed with the intensity of the heretical movements Augustine had to deal with the Manichees and Donatists. The situation in Northern Africa, during his time, was comparable to the violence suffered now in the same region among those of different beliefs. Much of Augustine's time as a bishop was spent in acting as a judge, as was the custom of the time. The "philosopher" soul of Augustine must have been much troubled to have spent so much dealing with small and large controversies. Despite, or perhaps, because of his adult life being spent dealing with serious controversies, Augustine made significant contributions to the Church and history besides his writings. According to Brown, it was Augustine who established a pattern of Catholic priests being "separate" from the laity. Augustine had loved being a teacher and brought the same "school" ideas to the priest-hood. He had as many as possible of his priest living and studying communally separate from the community. Augustine's last ten days of life were a surprise to me. A man who had surrounded himself with students, priests, and friends all of his life, chose to spend the end alone in prayer. I would have thought he would have wanted to had last goodbyes with the people he had loved to share with so much during his life. Brown's biography of Augustine is a gift to scholars, as well as, a collection of information from other sources. He achieves his goal and educates his reader, at least, this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellently portrays Africa as the Mid-West of Ancient Rome
Review: For those who are unfamiliar with Peter Brown, he is one of the most eloquent writers of late antiquity. He writes his biography of St. Augustine--the man who founded the base of medieval Christianity and theology. Brown's book begins at the site of North Africa as it was when occupied by Rome. Brown describes the boyhood home of young Augustine as the stomping grounds for an intelligent, but incorrigible youth. Augustine was indoctrinated into Roman culture by receiving a Pagan education even though he was raised as a uncommitted Christian. Augustine's childhood and teens are reflected by the Saint in his old age as selfish, immoral, and reckless. He gradually gave up his self-indulgences and came to associate them with his Pagan education. He turned to Manicheeism to learn the scientific principles of the universe, but found the religion unfullfilling. He embraced Neo-Platonism, but realized it did not offer the true God. Finally, Augustine reclaimed his Christian heritage while in Milan under the tutalge of St. Ambrose. Augustine found the simplicity, but ambiguous scriptures full of the one answer he wanted in life: the origin of evil.
Rating:
Summary: A book worth owning...
Review: I can only agree with other reviewers that this is an excellent biography... A suggestion to readers: Peter Brown, in this new (2000) edition, has added two chapters - as an Epilogue: 1.New Evidence, and 2.New Directions. Since his original work dates back to 1967, I would strongly suggest one FIRST read these two chapters, then move through the body of the biography, and finally reread the two "Epilogue chapters". (Don't ignore the footnotes; they're annotated!). Some of Brown's conclusions have changed in the past 33 years! --- Take advantage of the index; it is very well done. Some illustrations: "Jerome, acrimonious correspondence with Augustine," "Baptism, of infants," "Africans, love of puns and acrostics," "Pelagius, annoyed by the Confessions," etc. Skimming the index provoked me into re-reading several different bits. --- Brown's gift for expression (and his willingness to make judgments!) shine out everywhere. Here's a single paragraph to demonstrate: "The congregations who heard Augustine preach were not exceptionally sinful. Rather, they were firmly rooted in long-established attitudes, in ways of life and ideas, to which Christianity was peripheral. Among such men, the all-demanding message of Augustine merely suffered the fate of a river flowing into a complex system of irrigation: it lost its power, in the minds of its hearers, by meeting innumerable little ditches, by being broken up into a network of neat little compartments." --- An extremely helpful tool is Brown's inclusion of a "Chronological Table" at the beginning of each of the five sections of this work. Each is a multicolumn, vertical, two-page wide timeline that cross-references the events of each year (1) in the Roman Empire, (2) in Augustine's life, (3) in his writings of the year, and also provides (4) modern translations when available. [I have already tracked down and ordered a Catholic University Press reprint of Wilcox's 1955 translation of Augustine's Tractatus adversus Judaeos - which I had never even heard of until I read this biography! I look forward to reading Augustine's own words in 429 A.D. regarding Judaism!] --- This life history chronicles the development of one of the seminal personalities in the development of modern Christianity in such a way that you feel you know the man. That alone makes it an impressive accomplishment.
Rating:
Summary: One of the great biographies.
Review: I have longed owned and treasured this book. A friend said "its like reading a novel', and I agree.Peter Brown is an exemplar of the sort of mind that Oxford used to produce on a regular basis.Augustine of Hippo, Like Dummett's Frege and Charles Taylors Hegel, was typical of the extraordinary scholarship produced by the fellows of All Souls during the late sixties and early seventies. I only envy those who had the chance to study with Brown at Oxford, or who study with him today at Princeton.
Rating:
Summary: brown makes histoy come alive
Review: I just finished this book. On the whole I enjoyed this book thoroughly. A nice feature of this work is how it puts everything Augustine said into the historical surroundings, which makes reading primary sources more easily understandable as you understand the historical context they were written in. As an accomplished historian over this time period, Peter Brown is more than able to accomplish this task. Historical settings shown include: the backgroud of what growing up in Africa would have been like for Augustine, the beautiful imagery describing what Augustine's baptism (by Ambrose) and initiation into the Catholic Church would have been like, how conflicts with the Donatists, Manicheists (and of course) Pelagianists all came about and how Augustine dealt with them all, and the list goes on. My only concern is that I read the 1st edition of the book, and I've been told there are additional parts added in a revised 2nd edition which might interest me. However, that is hardly a fault of the book itself, (just a case of me being cheap by buying a used copy) so my review is the full 5 stars.
A nice reference on Augustine is "Augustine Through The Ages: An Encyclopedia" by Allan Fitzgerald & John Cavadini; which may also interest readers as well. I have browsed through it in a library and hope to get a copy when the funds are available; it looked very promising to say the least. If you want to understand the theology and history of the Western/Latin Church, it is very hard to do so without knowing at least some basics of Augustine's theological distinctives and stances. Texts like Brown's biography here is a nice first step in understanding the old Saints thought.
Rating:
Summary: An elegant and precise biography of Augustine
Review: It is quite often said that biographies like the one I have in my hands , be them autobiographical or third-party bios, are the "vin rosé" of books, ranking behind the more palatable red or white vintages. For my part, I dont quite agree at all with this assertion, having already read many dense, enjoyable and full of meaning biographies. When crisscrossing biographies as "low-grade" literary accomplishments, critics should remember that one of the two most relevant textbooks from Augustine is his celebrate Confessions, written probably c.397 and listed among the most momentuous texts ever done. Should we follow the expert's advice and scrape it into the trash bin of unimportant works? I don't think so. Getting back from this digression, I am not at all ashamed to affirm that "Augustine of Hippo - a biography", by Peter Brown, is a pretty elegant account of the life and work of one of the two most important philosophers of Catholicism of all times, the other being St.Thomas Aquinas, the writer of Summa Theological. "Augustine of Hippo" first published in 1967 was recently revised and republished , in 2000, with a new and fascinating epilogue, accouting for the whole new breed of archealogical evidence that cropped up in between the two dates. The book is not just a factual and competent account of the life of the man Augustine, being also a ponderous sketch of his unsurpassed work and contribution to the erection of the scaffolds and edifice of the Catholic Church, in a time of the decline fortune of paganism and of the Roman Empire itself. "Austine of Hippo" is a dense text, some 500 pages long, and dulcissimus to read, all the subjects and issues related to his life and work, being presented on good schematical order, supported by clear-cut tables and maps. The issues are well-chosen and give a full scope of the somewhat tumultuos life of the philsopher saint, son of Saint Monica, a towering figure over his son, much more so than his father Patricius and his prematurely dead son Adeodatus. Many potentially mind boggling issues like Manichaeism, Neo-Platonism and the Trinity Dogma are written with simplicity, withouth the loss of inner coherence. As a minor defect, I don't quite agree with the extensive use of page footnotes, which makes the reading of the text somehow tedious.But, despite this irrelevant fault, I can think of no better way of addressing such unsurpassable subject as Saint Augustine and his contribution to world affairs.
Rating:
Summary: An elegant and precise biography of Augustine
Review: It is quite often said that biographies like the one I have in my hands , be them autobiographical or third-party bios, are the "vin rosé" of books, ranking behind the more palatable red or white vintages. For my part, I dont quite agree at all with this assertion, having already read many dense, enjoyable and full of meaning biographies. When crisscrossing biographies as "low-grade" literary accomplishments, critics should remember that one of the two most relevant textbooks from Augustine is his celebrate Confessions, written probably c.397 and listed among the most momentuous texts ever done. Should we follow the expert's advice and scrape it into the trash bin of unimportant works? I don't think so. Getting back from this digression, I am not at all ashamed to affirm that "Augustine of Hippo - a biography", by Peter Brown, is a pretty elegant account of the life and work of one of the two most important philosophers of Catholicism of all times, the other being St.Thomas Aquinas, the writer of Summa Theological. "Augustine of Hippo" first published in 1967 was recently revised and republished , in 2000, with a new and fascinating epilogue, accouting for the whole new breed of archealogical evidence that cropped up in between the two dates. The book is not just a factual and competent account of the life of the man Augustine, being also a ponderous sketch of his unsurpassed work and contribution to the erection of the scaffolds and edifice of the Catholic Church, in a time of the decline fortune of paganism and of the Roman Empire itself. "Austine of Hippo" is a dense text, some 500 pages long, and dulcissimus to read, all the subjects and issues related to his life and work, being presented on good schematical order, supported by clear-cut tables and maps. The issues are well-chosen and give a full scope of the somewhat tumultuos life of the philsopher saint, son of Saint Monica, a towering figure over his son, much more so than his father Patricius and his prematurely dead son Adeodatus. Many potentially mind boggling issues like Manichaeism, Neo-Platonism and the Trinity Dogma are written with simplicity, withouth the loss of inner coherence. As a minor defect, I don't quite agree with the extensive use of page footnotes, which makes the reading of the text somehow tedious.But, despite this irrelevant fault, I can think of no better way of addressing such unsurpassable subject as Saint Augustine and his contribution to world affairs.
Rating:
Summary: Scholarly Biography at Its Best
Review: Peter Brown has accomplished what a scholarly biography should: make us feel that we have come to enter the life and mind of the subject of the biography. Brown's chapters are relatively short and thus make reading this long book pleasurable because you can make identifiable progress in your reading. Brown also has copious citations to the works of Augustine for those who wish to track down a quote. In addition, he has added an epilogue that actually corrects the flawed judgments he made in the first edition over thirty years ago (this is a humility rare in academic circles). The epilogue also has a chapter on new writings of Augustine that scholars have uncovered since the first edition of his work. My only wish would have been for more theological exploration of the theme of predestination which is presented in a superficial manner. As a Catholic, I would also have preferred more explicit exploration of Augustine's relations with the popes of his time. But, all in all, Brown has written and updated a great biography that deserves its stature as the definitive biography of Augustine. I heartily recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A Superb Biography, by fermed
Review: Peter Brown is like a very caring, scholarly and slightly eccentric tutor, of the type grown and revered in England's ancient universities. As a non-scholar on the subject of Augustine and his time, I approached this book wearily, expecting to be ignobly defeated by the middle of, say, chapter two. But such was not the case. My smattering about Augustine, about his Manichaeism, about his saintly mother, Monica, about his "Confessions" and about his conversion by St. Ambrose, all rusty remnants of a fine (but wasted) education, were revived and even rejuvenated by Mr. Brown. His words coaxed ancient neurons to make dendritic connections with their neighbors, so that towards the middle of this longish book I was dealing confidently with Fourth century institutions and had become familiar with some of the philosophical issues that plaged the early Christians. This is Brown: "A stranger from the provinces [Augustine] would, of course, go to church to find a girl-friend, much as another stranger, the Genoese, Christopher Columbus, will meet his wife in Seville Cathedral." And about Augustine's desire to seek his fortune as a rethoritian in Milan: "He would have been like a Westernized Russian in the nineteenth century, established in Paris." This ability to move back and forth in time to clarify his points is one of the many joys of reading Brown. He is also a master of the right anecdote and of the enlightening "obscure" fact. For instance, he tells us that in the Fourth century the image of Christ was that of a teacher, a philosopher. There were no crucifixes in the Fourth century, and the concept of the suffering Savior did not exist. The book is as satisfying as a plentiful and well prepared meal, and like a meal, it is to be consumed slowly and respectfully. Brown makes you trust him about his deep knowledge of the years immediately preceding the sack of Rome and the fall of the empire. He does this, over and over, by his ease with the trivial details and by the depth with which he addresses the important ones. A very fine book for the reference shelf, to read once and to return to frequently.
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