Augustine in His Own Words (continued)
xviii Introduction to make them all fit together well enough for viewers, once they stand back, to see a unified image. The same challenge faces editors.
In constructing this Augustinian mosaic, I have had several exemplars in view. One has been David Ford's and Mike Higton's anthology, entitled Jesus.14 It gathers a wide-ranging variety of 1to 2-page excerpts drawn from theological texts, ecumenical councils, mystical writings, hymns, apocryphal texts, poems, and much else, about Jesus. An older model, well known to patristic scholars, is J. Stevenson's classic two-volume compilation, A New Eusebius and Creeds, Councils, and Controversies.15 Stevenson assembled snippets from a wide range of hard-to-find materials: acts of Christian martyrs, conciliar documents, fragments from heretics and persecutors, inscriptions on coins and catacombs, snatches of gossip in scattered letters. The final result is a brilliant mosaic of early Christianity. Augustine, I believe, deserves a mosaic of comparable luster.
I want this book to serve as a hospitable entry into Augustine's writings and world, and hope it encourages readers to explore beyond its pages. I have, therefore, appended an annotated bibliography, which offers a broad sampling of scholarly studies that readers may want to turn to next. I also hope readers will begin exploring Augustine's individual works in their entirety. To aid that, I have assembled a listing of his complete works, both the Latin originals and the major English translations, arranged according to their Latin titles. I realize that many readers may not know any Latin, but it is important that they gradually learn to recognize the Latin titles in order to follow scholarly discussions and to chase down references.
This book, as I noted, is for newcomers. I take both consolation and certain cues from Augustine himself, who was deeply attuned to the needs of beginners and who once composed a brief, brilliant treatise entitled On Catechizing Beginners (De catechizandis rudibus). He wrote the work at the request of Deogratias, a deacon from Carthage. In it, he stressed that teaching beginners is both a noble task and an intricate art form. He reminded Deogratias of the experience of taking friends on a tour of one's hometown and the nearby countryside, noting how "we, who have been in the habit of passing this landscape by without any enjoyment, find our own delight renewed by their delight at the novelty of it all." And if, he added, long familiarity has cooled our enthusiasm, then we should be "renewed in their newness" and "catch fire in their fire." Good teaching, he believed, springs from a myste-
14. David Ford and Mike Higton, eds., Jesus, Oxford Readers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). 15. J. Stevenson, ed., A New Eusebius: Documents Illustrative of the History of the Church to AD 337 and Creeds, Councils, Controversies: Documents Illustrative of the History of the Church AD 337–461, rev. ed. W. H. C. Frend (London: SPCK, 1987, 1989).