Reviewed in this essay:
Augustine: A New Biography, by James J. O’Donnell. Ecco, 416 pp. $26.95.
DESPITE the conflicts that have marked Christian history, Christians of the past, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, have agreed that a Christian should seek what is true and condemn what is false or heretical. Thus, while the various traditions might disagree in their interpretation of what constitutes heresy, they are unified in the principle that heresy should be avoided. James O’Donnell’s Augustine: A New Biography takes a different slant. O’Donnell’s view of Augustine is filtered through his claim that the natural and healthy state of Christianity was one rife with “heresies” and that Augustine is ultimately to blame for the elimination of “legitimate” forms of Christianity such as Manicheanism and Donatism. O’Donnell’s criticisms stem from a reluctant observation that the Church has not, throughout its life, moved in the direction of a catholicism that “enfolds more religious traditions than the ones that claim a home in Jerusalem.” As the author explains,
The Jesuits of the sixteenth century spoke for a vision of universal Christianity that went beyond what the papacy of their own time could tolerate, and the lapse that followed as they were pulled back from China and checkmated in South America begat centuries of narrow community-building. The twentieth century saw another exhilarating movement into openness in the papacy of John XXIII, but popes since have retreated into narrower definitions of community.
O’Donnell does not speak as a promoter of Manicheanism or Donatism, however, but as an altogether contemporary type: a promoter of diversity instead of truth. This positioning, along with O’Donnell’s contention that Augustine was motivated primarily by ambition rather than faith, is a pervasive and debilitating influence on the book.
O’Donnell’s stated intention is to show Augustine’s life from the perspective of his contemporaries in Africa. He argues for this Afro-centric interpretation of Augustine on the grounds that it will provide a new and deeper understanding of the man’s life and work. Whether such a view would in fact provide a new and deeper understanding of Augustine remains to be seen because O’Donnell’s work quickly becomes mired in his theories about the origins and development of Christianity. Perhaps because O’Donnell relegates to one chapter the portion of Augustine’s life about which we know the most (that covered by Augustine’s Confessions), this biography spends too little time on Augustine’s life and too much time on O’Donnell’s case against Augustine.
O’Donnell devotes significant space to analyzing Augustine’s efforts against various heretical groups, especially the Manicheans, the Donatists and the Pelagians. He criticizes Augustine’s efforts because, in his view, a diversity of practice and belief was the natural form of Christianity; because Catholicism had an unhealthy interconnection (almost identification) with the Roman government; and because Augustine’s undermining of Donatism left northern Africa so weakened that the Vandals and subsequently the Muslims were able to conquer it.
In a section largely free from citations, O’Donnell explains, as if it were fact, that Christianity was an invention of the Fathers of the Church and that Christianity, in its original form, was widely dis-unified in doctrine and practice. O’Donnell argues that there was an original diversity (disunity) of belief and practice within the early church and proposes that this disunity is the healthy and normative state for Christianity. With its heavy reliance on conflict among the apostles and particularly between Peter and Paul, O’Donnell’s interpretation of the early church faces a heavy burden in explaining the Council of Jerusalem, recounted in the Acts of the Apostles, where Paul came to Jerusalem to consult with the apostles on the question of gentiles, conversion and keeping with the Law of Moses. After some discussion, Peter stood up and ended the arguments by proclaiming Paul’s interpretation the authentic faith passed to them by Christ. Leaving aside the question of Petrine authority (which O’Donnell dates centuries later than Augustine), the Council of Jerusalem seriously undercuts O’Donnell’s argument that the natural state of Christianity was dis-unified.
Elsewhere, O’Donnell’s thesis that Augustine’s Christianity (Catholicism) was too heavily connected with imperial politics seems to be a selective reading of history. Within the short period of “imperial favor” since Constantine, the emperors had already managed to come into serious conflict with such notable Catholics as St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Ambrose. Even in reference to the triumph of Catholicism over Donatism, the evidence for a singular unity between Catholicism and the Roman government is far from conclusive. The Catholics did win out in the end, and the Roman government was instrumental in that triumph, but that is something quite different from O’Donnell’s claim that the “Church and state had coalesced in the Roman empire.” In June, 411, at the Baths of Gargilius, the dispute between the Donatists and Caecilianists (as Augustine’s group of Christians was called in northern Africa) was resolved by an envoy from the Roman government. In essence, each side was given the opportunity to prove, as each claimed, that it was the true catholic faith.
O’Donnell principally relies on the debate at the Baths of Gargilius to establish his claim that the Caecilianists had collaborated with the Roman empire in an effort to force out Donatism. O’Donnell describes the situation as follows: “[Marcellinus] had been assigned to investigate the split between the two factions of the African church. Given his devotion and his later friendship with Augustine, the fix surely seemed to be in place for the debates to follow.” This conspiracy-heavy line of argument seems intellectually immature for a serious book. In essence, O’Donnell argues that Marcellinus (and the Roman government) had already decided in favor of the Caecilianists because Marcellinus was devout and subsequently became a friend to Augustine. There appears to be nothing in the conduct of the case that indicates Marcellinus showed favoritism, and O’Donnell gives no indication that Marcellinus disadvantaged the Donatists in any way. In fact, O’Donnell concedes that the Donatists lost because they were wrong about the history of their controversy with the Caecilianists.
In a related “interrogation,” O’Donnell criticizes his subject for weakening the “native” form of Christianity in Africa (Donatism) to such an extent that the northern part of Africa was successfully conquered by the Arian Vandals and, eventually, by the Muslims. O’Donnell speculates that perhaps the population of northern Africa would have been sufficiently unified to repel these invaders. It may be that O’Donnell is correct in this claim that a stronger Donatism would have triumphed over the Vandals and Muslims, but it is difficult, frankly, to be terribly disappointed with the actual results of this particular instance of dis-unity. O’Donnell himself states that if Donatism had survived it would have been much like Islam, so it is unclear why the subsequent Muslim conquest counsels in favor of the Donatists. Moreover, the kind of “Christianity” practiced by the Donatists is hardly appealing in terms of its penchant for violence against rivals. The Donatists are described as participating in horrific assaults on Catholics—flinging lime and vinegar into the eyes of the Catholic clergy in order to blind them, vandalizing Catholic basilicas and smashing the altars. O’Donnell recounts that in the summer of 411, two Catholic priests from Hippo were murdered by Donatists—after one was tortured by having a finger chopped off and an eye gouged out.
Augustine, in contrast, even with the backing of a government edict ordering the destruction of pagan idols, condemned destroying pagan idols when they were on the property of pagans. Augustine adhered to the Christian tradition of the Caecilianists who, as Augustine scholar Henry Chadwick put it, “saw no reason to erect a wall of hostility between themselves and their pagan neighbors.” This stands in marked contrast with the Donatists’ brutal record. Furthermore, according to Chadwick, Augustine condemned those Christians who claimed that they were “under no obligation to keep faith with heretics” or were “morally entitled to do down a pagan customer.” And finally, to cite back to O’Donnell, Augustine cared about Christians in other lands, in contrast to the Donatists who “did not by and large deeply care about the fate or habits of Christians elsewhere.” Despite his own criticism of the Donatists, O’Donnell seems to think that one of the greatest tragedies of Augustine’s career was the weakening of Donatism in Africa in his efforts to strengthen the Catholic faith.
For reasons such as this, O’Donnell’s biography of Augustine is ultimately unsuccessful and unlikely to move discussions of Augustine’s life forward in a meaningful manner. So much of the book is taken up with arguments that come across as pet theories unlikely to survive more impartial evaluation. One is left to wonder why O’Donnell has spent so much of his life studying Augustine when his writing indicates that he has little or no sympathy for him, either as theologian or as man. Augustine, for all his flaws, has always been understood by the tradition as a man who loved God and sought to further His glory with what talents had been given to him. It is this Augustine that inspires a man like O’Donnell to spend his life studying him. We can only hope that O’Donnell will find that Augustine again.
Copyright 2004-2005 :: The New Pantagruel 2.3.