Index

First, although many pre-Augustinian writers – such as Hilary of Poitiers and Ambrosiaster – considered some individual components of a Christian theology of justification, particularly in commenting on the Pauline letters, they cannot be said to have integrated these insights into a coherent whole. Its various threads may have been explored; they remained, however, disparate and disconnected, waiting to be woven into a larger interconnected narrative. 1 Augustine offers a coherent account of how justification by faith might be seen as an integral aspect of – though not, it must be said, a dominant theme within – a grander theological vision. Augustine thus proved a significant resource as the process of theological system-building began in earnest in the late twelfth century in western Europe.

Second, the development of early Christian theology was stimulated by the emergence of controversy, which often exposed the provisionality and incoherence of theological positions which had yet to be subjected to the rigour of critical scrutiny. A good example lies in the emerging Christological models of the third century, which often proved to be of limited utility when subjected to critical examination in the heat of controversy. 2 Such controversies often exposed the need for new and non-biblical theological terms – such as hypostasis – to allow for a more coherent formulation of theological principles. 3 Although the Pelagian controversy is more complex and socially situated than some purely theological accounts of the debate allow, 4 there is no doubt that Augustine was forced to clarify aspects of a Christian metanarrative of grace – including the doctrine of justification by faith – as a result of increasingly penetrating interrogation of some formulations of his earlier ideas. 5 The legacy that Augustine passed on to his medieval interpreters had thus been tested and tempered under duress, many of its vulnerabilities and ambiguities having been identified and addressed. Yet as the history of medieval discussions of justification made clear, ambiguities remained.

Although we shall be considering specific aspects of Augustine’ s views in charting the development of the doctrine of justification in the Middle Ages, it is clearly important to set out a general overview of his ideas on the doctrine of justification by faith at this earlier stage, before going on to present a more detailed engagement with his ideas later in this volume. Although much attention has been paid in the scholarly literature to Augustine’ s doctrine of grace, there are relatively few studies dealing more specifically with his doctrine of justification. The following section aims to set out a reliable account of the emergence and character of his views on this matter.

Controversy has focussed on Augustine’ s remarks to the effect that this transition took place ‘ in the first of two books written to Simplicianus’ , probably dating from late 396. 7 In Ad Simplicianum , Augustine realised that there are problems with his acceptance of an unfettered human free will in his earlier Pauline commentaries on Romans and Galatians, written between 394 and 395. Augustine therefore rejected the possibility of an autonomous human initiative in choosing to believe faith and argued that the origins of faith (initium fidei ) must be seen as lying in divine grace.

Peter Brown has argued that this marks a rupture between Augustine’ s early more philosophical way of thinking and his later, more theological approach. 8 This has led some to suggest that the younger Augustine of the period 386– 96 was in fact some form of proto-Pelagian, if such an anachronism might be allowed. This suggestion reflects both the substance of Augustine’ s anthropology at this point, as well as the observation that both Pelagius and Julian of Eclanum appealed to Augustine’ s early ‘ philosophical’ writings, in which Augustine expressed a relative confidence in the natural capacities of human beings, including their intrinsic capacities to find grace and truth. 9

Recently, however, this view has been challenged; Carol Harrison, for example, has argued that ‘ the real revolution in Augustine’ s thought’ happened not in 396 but at the time of his conversion in 386, and that ‘ the defining features of his mature theology were in place from this moment onwards’ . 10 For Harrison, the change that Augustine introduced in Ad Simplicianum was not to be seen as a radical innovation in his theology, but rather as a reversion to his original thinking, correcting the errors he had introduced in his commentaries on Paul’ s two letters in 394– 5. In those commentaries, Augustine was concerned to criticise forms of fatalism or determinism associated with the Manicheans; the polemical context of his anti-Manichean arguments led him to overstate human capacities unaided by grace. The correction he introduced in 396 was not therefor the introduction of a radical new turn of thought, but a reversion to an earlier, more considered position. 11

Those familiar with the later history of the doctrine of justification tend to read Augustine’ s conversion narrative in the eighth book of his Confessiones as a single moment of transition, an existential turning point linked with a sense of acceptance with God. 12 Yet Augustine’ s narrative must not be forced into this later theological framework, not least because Augustine is clear that he already had a personal faith in Christ as his saviour at that point. 13 The outcome of this narrative is thus not faith in Christ, but a decision to be baptised, which he had hitherto resisted.

Like many commentators on Paul’ s letters, Augustine sees his doctrine of justification as articulating an intellectual framework within which the economy of salvation may be affirmed and explored. In particular, Augustine sees the notion of justification by faith as a lens for interpreting the relation of Jews and Christians, affirming the continuity of the church and Israel without requiring a continued observance of the Mosaic law within the Christian community of faith. 14 Augustine notes how Abraham’ s justification by faith before the enactment of circumcision and the Mosaic law removes any ongoing role for the ‘ works of the law (opera legis )’ in the Christian life, 15 while affirming the importance of such cultic requirements for Jews.

So what is this ‘ faith’ , by which we are justified? Augustine tends to understand faith primarily as an adherence to or confidence in the Word of God, which inevitably introduces a strongly intellectualist element into his concept of faith. Faith alone is merely assent to revealed truth, itself inadequate to justify. For Augustine, we must speak of ‘ faith working through love’ , fides quae per dilectionem operatur , a term which would dominate western Christian thinking on the nature of justifying faith for the next thousand years. The process by which Augustine arrives at this understanding of the nature of justifying faith illustrates his desire to do justice to the total biblical view on the matter, rather than a few isolated Pauline gobbets.

In his treatise De Trinitate , Augustine considers the difficulties arising from 1 Corinthians 13:1– 3, which declares that faith without love is useless. 16 This leads Augustine to draw a distinction between a purely intellectual faith (such as that ‘ by which even the devils believe and tremble’ (James 2:19)) and true justifying faith, by arguing that the latter is faith accompanied by love. Augustine finds this concept conveniently expressed within the Pauline corpus at Galatians 5:6: ‘ In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith that works through love (fides quae per caritatem operatur ).’ Augustine’ s emphasis on being justified by a faith which is expressed in love – for example, of God and neighbour – rather than a purely cerebral intellectual assent found wide acceptance in the Middle Ages. 17

The term iustificare is, of course, post-classical, having been introduced through the Latin translation of the Bible, so that its usage is largely restricted to Christian writers of the Latin West. Consequently, Augustine was unable to turn to classical authors in an effort to clarify its meaning and was therefore obliged to interpret the term himself. Augustine therefore drew on existing interpretations of the term from earlier Greek and Latin interpreters of Paul, such as Chrysostom and Tertullian, who had interpreted the verb in a factitive sense. Others would note that a misunderstanding may have arisen, arguing that the Greek verb dikaioun should be translated as ‘ to declare righteous’ rather than ‘ to make righteous’ . This is a possible, but certainly not necessary interpretation, although it is perhaps unwise to determine whether a verb is to be seen as declarative or factitive on the basis of morphological considerations alone. Some might suggest that dikaioun would have a causative or factitive meaning typical of such verbs: as with deloun (to make clear), douloun (to enslave) or nekroun (to mortify). Augustine himself adopts a strongly transformationist approach to the development of the Christian life, and clearly sees justification as part of this overall narrative, occasionally explicitly framed in terms of the divinisation of the believer. 20

As noted earlier, there is also the difficult question of whether the fundamentally theological and covenantal context within which Hebrew terms for ‘ righteousness’ and its cognates are embedded renders translation into secular Greek and Latin problematic. There is, however, no doubt as to what Augustine himself understood both the verb ‘ to justify (iustificare )’ and the noun ‘ justification (iustificatio )’ to mean. 21 ‘ What does “ justified” mean other than “ made righteous” , just as “ he justifies the ungodly” means “ he makes a righteous person out of an ungodly person” ?’ (Quid est enim aliud, iustificati, quam iusti facti, ad illo scilicet qui iustificat impium, ut ex impio fiat iustus? ) Or again: if God is said to ‘ justify the ungodly’ , this means that God makes an ungodly person righteous. Si iustificatur impius, ex impio fit iustus . 22 There are several points in his writings at which Augustine allows that iustificatio may have a declarative aspect – including the section of De spiritu et littera cited above, in which Augustine notes, without detailed comment, the possibility that the term justification, as it is encountered at Luke 10:29 might be understood as ‘ being held and esteemed as righteous’ . 23 Yet Augustine locates this use of the concept of justification in Luke’ s account of the lawyer who wished to ‘ justify himself (volens se iustificare )’ within his understanding of the trajectory of a Pauline narrative of justification. God’ s grace is given to us ut iustificando pium faciat – so that, by justifying us, God might make us holy. 24

This factitive concept of justification recurs throughout Augustine’ s writings, and correlates well with his general theological outlook. For example, Augustine appeals to the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30– 5), 25 seeing in this image of a wounded and injured person who is entrusted to an innkeeper for restoration to health an imaginative rendering of both the concept of salvation as a process of healing, and the role of the church in this process. While Augustine’ s allegorical interpretation of the parable probably derives from Ambrose , his use of it is entirely consistent with his own transformative approach to justification as a process of transformation by which sinners are healed and renewed within the community of faith. The idea of Christus medicus – Christ as the authentic healer of the human soul – was used extensively by Ambrose: ‘ We have found shelter with the Physician, who has healed our former wounds. We have received the great medicine of His grace; for great medicine takes away great sins.’ 26

Augustine develops this idea further, arguing that God, in healing humanity through the incarnation, has acted both as the administering physician and administered medicine. 27 Christ is thus the ‘ complete physician of our wounds (totus medicus vulnerum nostrorum ) who transforms our natures and situations. 28 In a powerful correlation of the doctrine of the incarnation and the image of Christus medicus , Augustine declares that, since we were unable to go to the physician for the healing of our multiple wounds and illnesses, the physician graciously chose to come to us instead. 29 We are healed of our wounds, our infirmities, our unrighteousness, and our sin through the transformative work of Christ within us.

There is thus no hint in Augustine of any notion of temporal justification purely in terms of ‘ reputing as righteous’ or ‘ treating as righteous’ , as if this state of affairs could come into being without or apart from the moral or spiritual transformation of humanity through grace. The pervasive trajectory of Augustine’ s thought is unambiguous: the justification of sinful humanity in history is a causative process, by which an ungodly person is made righteous, even if he is prepared to concede a declarative aspect or element of this process, provided that it is contextualised within this overall arc of the transformation of the impius to iustus . Augustine thus has an all-embracing transformative understanding of justification, which enfolds within a single conceptuality what some would later distinguish or separate – namely, both the event of justification (brought about by operative grace) and the process of justification (brought about by co-operative grace). On the basis of his reading of Paul’ s letters, Augustine himself does not, in fact, see any need to recognise, let alone distinguish between, two such aspects of justification; the distinction dates from the sixteenth century.

Yet a cautionary comment needs to be made at this point. Augustine develops what is, in effect, an anticipation of the medieval processus iustificationis – an attempt to establish the inner structure of the transformative process through which sinners are made righteous through God’ s transformative and gracious action in human history. Yet alongside his reflections on the temporal outworking of justification, Augustine also recognises an eschatological aspect to justification, in which the believer’ s good works, though effected by God, are finally accounted to the believer in order to attain eternal life. ‘ For even our good works, when they are understood to be rather God’ s than ours, are imputed (inputantur ) to us that we may enjoy this Sabbath rest.’ 30 This, however, is probably best seen as an eschatological regularisation of the basic Augustinian idea that ‘ in crowning our merits, God does nothing other than crown his own gifts’ . 31

For Augustine, there is an essentially linear connection between ius and iustitia , 34 which is in turn correlated with the underlying notion of ordo , manifested in both the orders of creation and redemption. 35 Iustitia is essentially the ordering of the world according to the order of being, itself an expression of the divine will. God created humans as they ought to be; by choosing to ignore this ordering, humans stepped outside this state of iustitia , so that their present state of iniustitia requires rectification through divine transformation, in that this is not something that sinful humanity is able to achieve unaided. Justification is therefore essentially a ‘ making right’ , a restoration of every facet of the relationship between God and humanity. Iustitia is not conceived primarily in legal or forensic categories, but transcends them, encompassing the ‘ right-wising’ of the God– human relationship in its many aspects: the relationship of God to humankind, of humans to their fellows, and of humans to their environment. 36 Justification is about ‘ making just’ – establishing the rectitude of the created order according to the divine intention. Although it is clear that justification has legal and moral ramifications, given the wide scope of Augustine’ s concept of iustitia , it is nevertheless not primarily a legal or moral concept.

This becomes clear in Augustine’ s discussion of both individual morality and social justice. Augustine’ s political theology (i.e., his theology of iustitia , applied to the community) is of particular interest. 37 De civitate Dei (413– 26) contains a critique of the Ciceronian understanding of the basis of social justice, arguing that God is iustissimus ordinator , who orders the universe according to his will. 38 Augustine’ s idea of iustitia highlights the importance of the divine ordering of things, reflected in both the right ordering of human affairs at the personal and social levels, and humanity’ s wider relationship to its environment. Whereas Cicero taught that iustitia was based on ius , arising from the iuris consensus , Augustine argued that ius itself must be regarded as based on iustitia. Thus for Augustine there can be no res publica without there being true iustitia within the community – that is, a right ordering of all its relationships in accordance with the divine purpose. 39 For Augustine, iustitia often seems to be synonymous with the right ordering of human affairs in accordance with the will of God. 40 Augustine framed this in terms of an ordo amoris , an ‘ order of love’ which identifies the right relationship between humanity and a hierarchy of objects of human desire and love. 41

The importance of characterising divine ‘ justice’ in this Christian manner becomes especially clear in the course of Augustine’ s controversy with the Pelagian writer Julian of Eclanum over the question of the justification of the ungodly. 42 Julian defined justice in Ciceronian terms, speaking of God rendering to individuals their due (reddens unicuique quod suum est ), without fraud or favour. God would therefore be expected to justify those who merited grace on the basis of their moral achievements, 43 in effect placing God under a contractual obligation to reward those who acted in certain prescribed manners. Julian’ s approach resonated well with the Roman cultural environment, particularly with an emerging ethic of self-improvement within the Christian community. 44 Yet this seemed to hint at the justification of the godly , whereas Augustine held that the essence of the Christian gospel was the justification of the ungodly. In countering Julian’ s concept of iustitia Dei as rendering to individuals what was due to them by some impartial public norm of justice, Augustine appealed to the parable of the labourers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1– 16), arguing that iustitia Dei primarily refers to God’ s faithful fulfilments of promises made to individuals, irrespective of the merits of those to whom the promise was made. God promises to justify those who have faith, without regard to their personal status, ethnicity or achievements.

There are grounds for thinking that the Pelagian controversy forced discussion of certain questions that had either not been considered, or were considered of minor importance, within an ‘ undifferentiated Christian tradition’ in the West. 45

The origins of the Pelagian controversy are traditionally held to date from 405, 47 when Pelagius reacted against Augustine’ s words ‘ give what you command, and command what you will. These words seemed to him to subvert any ascetic spiritual or moral reforming programme, such as that which he believed was required to reform Roman Christianity. 48 Yet although Pelagius is often depicted simply as a moral reformer with inclinations towards asceticism, more recent studies have called this into question. While emphasising the importance of living out an authentic Christian life, Pelagius insisted on the role of the Holy Spirit in achieving human spiritual authenticity. 49 Nor does Pelagius detach himself from biblical texts to develop a secular anthropology, as his close reading of Paul’ s letter to the Romans makes clear. 50

The Pelagian controversy has been the subject of considerable scholarly attention in recent decades, raising important questions about the reliability of some traditional accounts of the nature of the movement. The historical question of whether Pelagianism had its origins in Britain remains significant, given frequent references to this possibility in the writings of Prosper of Aquitaine and others. 51 Gerald Bonner’ s admonition that both historians and theologians had ‘ tended to form their image of Pelagianism by looking through Augustinian spectacles’ 52 has led to a willingness to entertain the possibility that ‘ Pelagianism’ may have been a rhetorical construction on Augustine’ s part, in which a composite and complex series of beliefs and attitudes, only some of which were due to Pelagius, were represented as if they were a coherent movement, focussing on Pelagius himself. 53 Did Augustine refashion Pelagius as his own antitype? Or construct ‘ Pelagianism’ to conceal his own indebtedness to Origen ? 54 There is clearly a need to consider social and cultural factors in understanding how ‘ Pelagianism’ became a social reality, 55 just as there is an equally pressing need to consider the extent to which cultural expectations may have shaped a ‘ Pelagian’ understanding of the obligations of Christian existence.

It is certainly true that some ‘ Pelagian’ ideas cannot be instanced from the writings of Pelagius himself, originating rather from Caelestius or Rufinus of Syria . 56 Some writings ascribed to Caelestius in turn appear to be hybrid texts, incorporating extracts from works of Pelagius and Caelestius himself. 57 Other views attributed to him by Augustine are perhaps better seen as logical inferences from Pelagius’ s stated views, rather than explicit statements originating from Pelagius himself. Yet this does not mean that these are invalid inferences. It also seems reasonably clear that at least some of his ideas were not new, but were common currency in some circles of Greek-speaking theology and spirituality.

Important though these questions might be, our concern here is primarily to explore how the Pelagian debates encouraged Augustine to clarify, and occasionally modify, his views on the themes that this debate opened up. Augustine’ s concept of justification as a ‘ making righteous’ did not undergo modification as a result of the Pelagian debate, nor did his understanding of the ‘ righteousness of God’ . However, refinement of his thinking can be seen at a number of significant points related to his views on justification – such as the nature of grace, the concept of original sin, and the nature of human freedom. 58

We have already noted one significant later modification of Augustine’ s views, in which the initium fidei , once attributed to human agency, is seen as an outcome of divine grace, possibly as a result of Augustine’ s more mature understanding of the psychology of the human will. 59 Augustine uses the Latin term liberum arbitrium , traditionally translated as ‘ freedom of the will’ , to affirm the human freedom to act, particularly in the face of fatalisms or determinisms, such as the Manicheanism he had once himself espoused. 60 The Latin term came to be used to translate a range of Greek words, such as autexousia and autexousiotēs , which affirm the freedom or autonomy of an agent.

Augustine’ s first anti-Pelagian work, De peccatorum meritis et remissione (411), opened the attack against Pelagianism with the assertion that it attributed too much to the human liberum arbitrium , and thereby effectively denied the need for special grace. Augustine does not refute Pelagianism by denying humanity’ s free will; rather, he insists that the need for grace can be affirmed without concurrently denying humanity’ s liberum arbitrium. His discussion of human freedom in justification proceeds upon the assumption that both grace and free will are to be affirmed, the problem requiring resolution being their precise relationship. God has given humans free will, without which they cannot be said to live well or badly, 61 and it is on the basis of their use of this liberum arbitrium that they will be judged. Grace, far from abolishing free will, actually establishes it. 62 So how can this apparently inconsistent set of ideas be reconciled?

Augustine, reacting against what he regarded as the Pelagian exaggeration of fallen humanity’ s abilities, maintained that humanity possesses liberum arbitrium , while denying that this entailed that they also possess freedom (libertas ). 63 The sinner has free will, but it is impaired and colonised by sin. It is unable to function properly. ‘ The free will taken captive (liberum arbitrium captivatum ) does not avail, except for sin; for righteousness it does not avail, unless it is set free and aided by divine action.’ 64 By libertas , Augustine means the power to choose and accomplish good – a power which fallen human nature no longer possesses. However, this loss of libertas does not imply the loss of liberum arbitrium. The human will cannot be likened to a scale, in whose balance-pans the arguments for and against a possible course of action are carefully weighed before any action is taken (i.e., libertas indifferentiae ), as Julian of Eclanum insisted was the case. While Augustine allows that the scales in question really do exist, and are capable of functioning, he argues that the balance-pans are loaded on the side of evil, yielding a judgement invariably biased towards evil.

Although Adam possessed liberum arbitrium before the Fall, humanity’ s free will is now compromised by sin, so that it is now liberum arbitrium captivatum. The free will is not lost, nor is it non-existent; it is merely incapacitated, and may be healed by grace. 65 In justification, the liberum arbitrium captivatum becomes the liberum arbitrium liberatum by the action of this healing grace. Hence the possibility of not sinning cannot exist in fallen humankind, although Augustine is at pains to point out that this does not exclude the natural freedom of humans. God would not command us to do something unless there was free will by which we could do it. Augustine’ s ethics presuppose that humans’ destiny is determined by merit or demerit, which together in turn presuppose – at least for Augustine – that humans possess free will. ‘ If there is no such thing as God’ s grace, how can he be the saviour of the world? And if there is no such thing as free will, how can he be its judge?’ 66 Augustine thus believes that his concept of liberum arbitrium captivatum resolves the dialectic between grace and free will without denying the reality of either.

Responding to the issues arising from the Pelagian debate, Augustine drew a distinction between operative and co-operative grace (or, more accurately, between operative and co-operative modes of gratuitous divine action: Augustine does not treat them as distinct ontological realities). God operates upon the bad desires of the liberum arbitrium captivatum to allow it to will good, and subsequently co-operates with the liberum arbitrium liberatum to actualise that good will in a good action. Or, to put this another way, God operates to initiate humanity’ s justification, in that humans are given a will capable of desiring good, and subsequently co-operates with that good will to perform good works, to bring that justification to perfection.

The justification of humanity is therefore an act of divine mercy, in that sinners neither desire it (because the liberum arbitrium captivatum is incapable of desiring good) nor deserve it (because of their sin and lack of merit). We can see here a soteriological outworking of one of Augustine’ s more remarkable statements on iustitia , which appears to envisage a close interconnection between justice and mercy: justice consists in helping the disadvantaged (agit iustitia in subviendo miseris ). 67 This statement, which generated considerable discussion in the early Middle Ages, 68 highlighted a potential tension between iustitia conceived as an obligatio subvenire miseris and as reddens unicuique quod suum est . Yet at another level, it points to a theological connection between justice and mercy as aspects of a larger account of the character of God.

For Augustine, on account of the Fall, the free will of humans is weakened and incapacitated, though not destroyed. Thus humans do not wish to be justified, because their liberum arbitrium captivatum is incapable of desiring justification; however, once restored to its former capacities by healing grace, it recognises the goodness of what it has been given. God thus cures humanity’ s illness, of which the chief symptom is the absence of any desire to be cured.

So why are human beings sinful? Augustine’ s discussion of this issue is both distinctive and controversial, and focusses on the notion of ‘ original sin’ . Given that the church baptises infants, and that baptism is for the ‘ remission of sin’ , it follows that infants are sinful. But how can this be, given that they unable to commit sins, due to their lack of reason? 69 Augustine’ s notion of original sin (peccatum originale ) is not totally dependent upon this line of argument; it is, however, consistent with the practice of the church. All human beings are born into the world in a sinful condition, in that all participated in Adam and Eve’ s historic primal sin, thereby inheriting collective guilt and constitutional flaws or dispositional defects – such as an inherited fault of disordered desire. 70 While Augustine develops some lines of speculation about how sin is transmitted from one generation to another, 71 his concept of original sin is not dependent on any single theological consideration or biblical passage, 72 but is rather to be seen as an integrative principle which offers both an assessment of the human predicament and how it may be resolved.

So what is new here? Many would argue that both Augustine’ s predecessors and contemporaries held to many of the ideas that are woven into his understanding of original sin – such as the belief that the human race suffered wounds because of some primal sin, and that mortality was an unnatural condition caused by the Fall. Yet Greek patristic writers declined to follow Augustine concerning the notion of inherited sin . While some elements of Augustine’ s doctrine can be discerned in earlier writers – particularly Cyprian of Carthage , Ambrosiaster and Ambrose , Augustine set these within a broader framework of hereditary transmission of sin and guilt which placed him apart from others developing similar themes.

Augustine can be credited with what may be the first systematic discussion of the relation between predestination and justification. Although earlier writers appear to have realised that Paul’ s discussion of the rejection of Israel, contained in Romans 9– 11, raised the question of predestination, 73 their chief concern appears to have been the defence of what they understood to be an authentically Christian understanding of free will in the face of astral fatalisms or cultural determinisms, such as Gnosticism. However, the issue of predestination emerged as significant during the Pelagian controversy , leading to an entanglement of the notions of justification and predestination.

For Augustine, the temporal election, or justification, of humanity is to be seen as the consequence or outworking of God’ s eternal election, or predestination. 74 Augustine’ s views on predestination emerged continuously throughout his career. Although Augustine expressed human freedom, especially in response to Manichean determinism, by placing the initium fidei within the initiative of human free will, he came to reconsider this, reaffirming that God’ s grace precedes every human merit, and even the human response to God’ s call to faith. 75

Augustine’ s contribution laid the foundation for the medieval development of the doctrine of justification. Although it would clearly be incorrect to characterise the great theological renaissance of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as nothing more than a somewhat unoriginal commentary on Augustine’ s ideas, the critical role that his theology played as both resource and norm can be overstated only with some difficulty. The standard textbook of medieval theology, still in use in the sixteenth century, was Peter Lombard ’ s Sentences – a collection of early Christian theological dicta, drawn largely from the writings of Augustine. 76 This influential book may be regarded as developing the procedure found in Prosper of Aquitaine ’ s Liber sententiarum ex operibus Augustini , a book of sentences drawn from Augustine’ s works which is often pointed to as an early representative of ‘ medieval Augustinianism’ – an attempt to bring together the main features of Augustine’ s theology, in order that they might be integrated and consolidated. 77

The theological renaissance of the twelfth century, which may be regarded as laying the foundations for the theology of the medieval period as a whole, was largely based upon the writings of Augustine. In every major sphere of theological debate, the point of departure appears to have been the views of Augustine. 78 As David Steinmetz shrewdly observed, ‘ All medieval theologians, even the most Pelagian, were indebted to the great father of western theology for many of their ideas. All medieval theologians are, in some measure at least, Augustinian theologians. The question is not whether a theologian is indebted to Augustine but rather what is the degree and nature of his indebtedness.’ 79 Even the late medieval theologian Gabriel Biel , widely regarded as a leading representative of the via moderna , was open in his admiration for Augustine, and his theological indebtedness to him. 80

We therefore turn to explore the great era of consolidation and development of the doctrine of justification – the Middle Ages.