Rethinking Augustine's Early Theology

• Challenges the almost universally accepted interpretation of the development of Augustine's theology
• Proposes a new thesis, arguing for a fundamental continuity in Augustine's belief and practice from the moment of his conversion, and so enhances a major scholarly debate
• Resists the general trend to begin reading Augustine with his Confessions (396) and argues for the importance of the works written in the decade before, immediately following his conversion

Readership: Theologians; historians of the early and medieval Church; classicists; philosophers.

Carol Harrison, Lecturer in the History and Theology of the Latin West, Durham University

"I would cordially recommend reading this study...Seldom I have read such a fierce defence of Augustine in recent literature. Harrison offers the reader a brilliant anthology of the early Augustine and is as such a valuable thematic introduction in the writing and thinking og Augustine before 396. But the monograph is much more, it is a meritorious overview of the several key elements in the continuity and a lesson in understanding how the central features of Augustine's conversion remain fruiytfully present in his thinking." - Anthony Dupont Ars Disputandi

"...sheds a helpful light on the entirety of Augustine's writing ... lucid and cogently argued study of some of Augustine's least-known works." - Edward Dowler, New Directions

"this is a seminal work, the best of Harrison's three distinguished volumes on the architect of Western Christendom." - Mark Edwards, Church Times

"a valuable corrective ... her re-assertion of elements of continuity is welcome." - The Tablet

Part I
1: The Context
2: The Revolution of 386
3: Ascent (and Descent)
4: Creation from Nothing
5: Paul
Part II
6: The Fall
7: The Will
8: Grace