Augustine of Hippo, indisputably one of the most important figures for the study of memory, is credited with establishing memory as the inner source of selfhood and locus of the search for God. Yet, those who study memory in Augustine have never before taken into account his preaching. His
sermons are the sources of memory's greatest development for Augustine. In Augustine's preaching, especially on the Psalms, the interior gives way to communal exterior. Both the self and search for God are re-established in a shared Christological identity and the communal labors of remembering and
forgetting.
This book opens with Augustine's early works and Confessions as the beginning of memory and concludes with Augustine's Trinity and preaching on Psalm 50 as the end of memory. The heart of the book, the work of memory, sets forth how ongoing remembering and forgetting in Christ are for Augustine are
foundational to the life of grace. To that end, Augustine and his congregants go leaping in memory together, keep festival with abiding traces, and become forgetful runners like St. Paul. Remembering and forgetting in Christ, the ongoing work of memory, prove for Augustine to be actions of
reconciliation of the distended experiences of human life-of praising and groaning, labouring and resting, solitude and communion.
Augustine on Memory presents this new communal and Christological paradigm not only for Augustinian studies, but also for theologians, philosophers, ethicists, and
interdisciplinary scholars of memory.
Industry Reviews
"This book is not only an excellent resource, but a rewarding read for Augustinian research. It is recommended not only for Augustinian scholars, but also for those engaged in academic research in Christian spirituality, Christian existentialism, and of course, Christology." -- Jessica Lee, Religious Studies Review
"Grove's Augustine on Memory is a landmark in Augustinian studies." -- Pierre Hegy, Adelphi University, Catholic Books Review
"This entirely welcome book takes up one of the most characteristic themes in Augustine, so commonly treated that it could be hard to imagine something genuinely new, creative . . . and important could be said about it, but here it is! Fr. Grove has produced a brilliant reworking of this theme, with significance that is at once scholarly and pastoral. Highly recommended!" -- John C. Cavadini, University of Notre Dame
"Memory is a much-studied theme of Augustinian thought, focused principally on Confessions and De trinitate. But Kevin Grove enlarges this analysis by harvesting fruit from his preaching, particularly the Enarrationes in psalmos and its major hermeneutical-soteriological theme, totus Christus. Grove's close reading reorients our understanding of Augustine's thought, not only for 'Christic memory,' but also for his pervasive communal Christology and the
fraught issue of the Augustinian 'self.' A clearly written, freshly conceived contribution." -- Michael Cameron, University of Portland
"This valuable study illumines the nature of the developing links between the reasoning self and Augustine's growing awareness of how Christ is Christ and what makes the church the church. Rather than yet one more narrow exploration of ancient epistemology, Grove, restores memory to its original and rhetorical context in Augustine's mature works and too often overlooked sermons. In so doing, he discovers Augustinian memory not only to be a site of coherence and
instability of the self in the flux of time, but, more importantly, a site of the exploration of the permeable boundaries of the individual self and the community in which it participates. Memory,
thus, becomes less of a solution to the problem of the self and more of a constructive way into the complications posed by selfhood itself and a path toward amendment of life." -- Paul R. Kolbet, Yale Divinity School
"This fine book's enormously rich offering enables Augustine's reader to more adequately comprehend this journey from being "stuck in itself." to communal identity in the "whole Christ"." -- Margaret R. Miles, Augustiniana
"The animating theme and great strength of the book is Grove's careful attention to Augustine' demonstration of the liturgical-linguistic process by which the Church is formed as and by the Whole Christ...Grove moves his readers from analysis about what Augustine says to learning how what Augustine says can give us purchase on who we are and who we hope to become." -- Andrew Staron, Heythrop Journal
