Augustine and the Problem of Power by Charles Norris Cochrane


Augustine and the Problem of Power
Title : Augustine and the Problem of Power
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 149829426X
ISBN-10 : 9781498294263
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 266
Publication : Published October 3, 2017

More than seventy years after his untimely death, this collection of essays and lectures provides the first appearance of Charles Norris Cochrane's follow-up to his seminal work, Christianity and Classical Culture. Augustine and the Problem of Power provides an accessible entrance into the vast sweep of Cochrane's thought through his topical essays and lectures on Augustine, Roman history and literature, Niccolo Machiavelli, and Edward Gibbon. These shorter writings demonstrate the impressive breadth of Cochrane's mastery of Greek, Roman, and early Christian thought. Here he develops the political implications of Christianity's new concepts of sin and grace that transformed late antiquity, set the stage for the medieval world that followed, and faced the reactions of the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Cochrane analyzes the revival of classical thought that animated Machiavelli's politics as well as Gibbon's historiography. Written amid the chaos and confusion of depression and world war in the twentieth century, Cochrane's writings addressed the roots of problems of his own ""distracted age"" and are just as relevant today for the distractions of our own age. ""To have available these essays of Charles Norris Cochrane is a belated treasure. Few people understood the relation of culture to politics, religion, and economics better than he. He understood the abiding realities of historical origins as well as the unique place of Augustine in the more general question of the meaning of history."" --​James V. Schall, SJ, Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University ""The devotion of Charles Norris Cochrane's granddaughter, Margaret Phillips, and the hard work of the editor, David Beer, allied to assemble several of Cochrane's shorter works along with material excised by the Oxford University Press from Christianity and Classical Culture. This collection will re-introduce to the world of scholarship one of the most original and comprehensive minds of the early twentieth century. The author's beautifully written evocation of both Augustine's detachment from, and his engagement with, politics at a time when the received order of Rome was under successful attack is the subject matter of the title piece, originally given as a lecture series at Yale in 1945, shortly before Cochrane's death. His exposition of Augustine's distinction between nature and grace and his comparison with equivalent distinctions in Plato combines the serenity of a scholar who knows his sources with a keen awareness of the imperfections of politics as evident in 1945 as it was to Augustine 1500 years earlier."" --Barry Cooper, Professor of Political Science, University of Calgary ""Charles Cochrane's contribution to scholarship endures because he was willing to go behind the texts to the animating experiences from which they arose. It was in this way that he put us in touch with an ancient world whose problems were not so remote from our own. His guide to those common challenges was the inexhaustible mind of Augustine who taught us to see everything in relation to the mind of God. To have, besides the towering achievement of Christianity and Classical Culture, the companion pieces that David Beer has so expertly edited here, is an occasion for considerable rejoicing. It is a welcome resource for all of us who must continue to reflect on the role of Christianity within the history of order."" --David Walsh, The Catholic University of America ""Although sometimes overshadowed by his Toronto colleagues, including Harold Innis, Frank Underhill, and Donald Creighton, Charles Cochrane was a brilliant classicist whose 1940 book, Christianity and Classical Culture, enriched our understanding of Western history. His sudden death five years later robbed the academic world of an important thinker at the height of his career. Representing years of love and scholarly labor on the part of David Beer, Augustine and the Problem of Power brings that powerful mind to a new

Augustine and the Problem of Power Reviews

  • Austin Hoffman

    Great. These essays and lectures continue to elaborate on his central thesis from Christianity and Classical Culture: namely that the Roman project of classical virtue reduce the human soul and the world to mechanical, repeatable causes, and that Augustine represented a fundamental rejection of this project.

  • Ben House

    A recurring argument for a book is “the test of time.” There are exceptions to the rule, for some really good books vanish from sight and mind while other mediocre books continue to be read. In the field of academic studies, an abiding book is even more rare. Continued scholarship, new insights, the chipping away of older interpretations results in scholars being interested in the latest work from the presses. Certainly, there are problems with this approach, but it has its merits as well.

    Almost unimpeachable are the books considered as the fundamental classics in the western world. Many of us have now spent decades trying to erase the shame of having degrees and supposedly being educated without having to read the great minds from Homer to Augustine, from Aquinas to Dante, from Luther to Kuyper. But along with the great books and world-changing authors are the books that are built upon, that comment and expound, that interpret and apply the great books. This book is a commentary, review, or explanation of Augustine's City of God.

    One indisputable giant in Western Civilization is Augustine of Hippo. (Of course, he is disputed, all the way down to how to pronounce his name.) The corpus of his works are daunting to tackle. The City of God itself is a massive and weighty read, but Augustine himself can be approached through Confessions and through On Christian Doctrine as well as sermons and shorter selections. Still there is a need for some, many in fact, to attempt to have a working understanding of The City of God. I know the challenge, for I have read it a couple of times and have taught large portions of it in a high school class. While it may not have remained on the best seller lists or on the most popular surveys for 1500 years, it has impacted our civilization and has yet to be a spent force. City of God is relevant to today and is more relevant than many of the current and trending topics and issues.
    Charles Norris Cochrane, an Oxford trained Canadian, served in World War I and then began his academic career at the University of Toronto. There he served as professor of Roman history. In 1940–not the best year for publishing a book–his defining work Christianity and Classical Culture came out. The intellectual community praised it. Jaroslav Pelikan called it “the most profound book I know on Augustine.” The poet and literary scholar W. H. Auden said, “I have read this book many times, and my conviction of the importance to the understanding not only of the epoch of which it is concerned, but also of our own, has increased with each rereading.”

    Cochrane was positioned to occupy a major role in scholarship for decades to come and was invited to lecture on Augustine at Yale University. But a heart attack led to his death before other works were published. (Cochrane had previously written a work on the Greek historian Thucydides.)
    Yet the man of one book remained a key force for studies related to Roman history, Christianity, the transition to the Middle Ages, philosophy, and theology for decades to come. Christianity and Classical Culture remains in print to this day having been reprinted by the Liberty Fund.

    Now, over seventy years since Cochrane’s book first appeared, we have the sequel. Cochrane gave a series of four lectures at Yale on “Augustine and the Problem of Power.” These lectures can be seen as a distillation or summary of his larger work. He had also written and spoken on other topics related to Roman culture, Machievelli, and Edward Gibbon.

    Long lost to the academic and book world, these papers were discovered by his granddaughter. As the scattered writings began to be read and thought about, a decision was made to publish them in book form. From that unexpected series of events, we now have the book Augustine and the Problem of Power: The Essays and Lectures of Charles Norris Cochrane. This work is edited by Professor David Beer, who also wrote a lengthy introduction to the collection. It was published this past year by Wipf and Stock.

    I readily, but cautiously, recommend this book. Readily because of the reputation of the author and the blessing of having a further work by him. Cautiously because this is not a “Augustine for Dummies” work. This book is a slow read. The title of the book is also the title of the four lectures which make up over a third of the book. The lectures delve into the Greek and Roman views of society and politics that Augustine was answering and refuting.

    Quite simply, the Greeks (and the Romans who followed) believed that a perfect or model or ideal society could be fashioned by the right political order, the right political philosophy, the right legislation. Man and society were, at least to a large degree, perfectable with the correct philosophical and governmental actions. In short order and directly, Cochrane labels the Greek and Roman political worldview as idolatry.

    The antidote to the idols of that age or this one is the Christian faith. Cochrane says, “Christian faith rests upon the unshakable conviction that, not withstanding the efforts of secularism to rationalize and justify its pretensions, the order of nature revealed by Christ and the Scripture is, the true order; to acknowledge which must therefore be the starting-point for all genuinely fruitful investigation into the problem of perfection” (pager 78).

    The statement above is not easy to swallow without some serious chewing. It is not bumper-sticker or sound-bite Christian answers to current questions. It takes unpacking and thinking. And that is why this book–Augustine and the Problem of Power–and Cochrane’s previous work–Christianity and Classical Culture–and Augustine’s City of God–are so important today.

    I received a review copy of Cochrane’s book and am not obligated to sing its praises, but will do so anyway.