Book Review: Patristics:Augustine’s Early Theology of the Church: Emergence and Implications, 386—391. By David C. Alexander. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Pp. 451. 70.00 (hbk). ISBN 978-1-4331-0103-8
Abstract
Book Review Patristics Augustine’s Early Theology of the Church: Emergence and Implications, 386—391. By David C. Alexander. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Pp. 451. 70.00 (hbk). ISBN 978-1-4331-0103-8 SAGE Publications, Inc. 2009DOI: 10.1177/00211400090740040601 David KellyOsa Milltown Institute, Dublin Readers of Augustine of Hippo are familiar with the broad outlines of his classic work, Confessions, written or at least begun in 397 AD. Therein we have an account of the spiritual odyssey of Augustine as he looks back on his life up to the moment of his conversion in 386 AD. While Confessions is an important window on Augustine’s search for God and his conversion, it is not necessarily the whole story. Augustine’s earliest writings predate Confessions by up to ten years and it is the development of his theological understanding of the Church during that period that is the focus of this substantial volume by David C. Alexander, an independent scholar based in the United States. Alexander’s work does not seek to start with Augustine’s conversion in Milan or with the clerical Augustine (ordained in 391), but rather with ‘the period of significant development following the conversion in 386 … for in many respects it is the years