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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2010

Lewis Ayres
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Summary

Even as summary accounts continue to repeat the established caricatures of the past century, new readings of Augustine's Trinitarian theology grow in scholarly detail and density. These new readings, which have largely emerged over the past three decades, argue for new accounts of the fundamental dynamics of Augustine's Trinitarianism; they suggest new questions that we should ask if we are to study him well; they suggest new texts from his corpus as paradigmatic. Many of the older readings of Augustine's Trinitarian theology that have been displaced by this body of scholarship – and which, it must be noted, have not been extensively defended in the scholarly literature for many years – tended to view Augustine in highly negative fashion as the initiator of disastrous trends in Western Christian thought. Augustine was presented as marking a shift in the history of early Christian Trinitarianism, his own overly strong commitment to the divine unity partially being the result of his Neoplatonic engagements and strongly influencing those who came after him. This commitment led him away from the heritage of earlier Greek Nicene theology (and, in some readings, from earlier Latin theology). Even many of those who viewed Augustine positively – and saw his differences from his predecessors as merely delineating sets of complementary theological trajectories – operated with similar assumptions about his work. At the same time, his Trinitarian theology was engaged through an almost exclusive focus on the De trinitate.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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References

Régnon's, TheodoreÉtudes de théologie positive sur la Sainte Trinité (Paris: Retaux, 1898)Google Scholar
Barnes's, MichelDe Régnon Reconsidered’, AugStud 26 (1995), 51–79Google Scholar
Schmaus, Michael, Die psychologische Trinitätslehre des hl. Augustinus (Münster: Aschendorff, 1967)Google Scholar
Roy, Olivier, L'Intelligence de la Foi en la Trinité selon Saint Augustin. Genèse de sa Théologie Trinitaire jusqu'en 391 (Paris: etudes Augustiniennes, 1966)Google Scholar
Kany's, Roland excellent Augustins Trinitätsdenken. Bilanz, Kritik und Weiterführung der modernen Forschung zu ‘De trinitate’ (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007)Google Scholar
Studer, Basil, Augustins De Trinitate. eine Einführung (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2005)Google Scholar

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  • Introduction
  • Lewis Ayres, University of Durham
  • Book: Augustine and the Trinity
  • Online publication: 06 December 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511780301.001
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  • Introduction
  • Lewis Ayres, University of Durham
  • Book: Augustine and the Trinity
  • Online publication: 06 December 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511780301.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Lewis Ayres, University of Durham
  • Book: Augustine and the Trinity
  • Online publication: 06 December 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511780301.001
Available formats
×