Most readers first encounter Augustine's love for Scripture's words in the many biblical allusions of his masterwork, the Confessions. Augustine does not merely quote texts, but in many ways makes Scripture itself tell the story. In his journey from darkness to light, Augustine becomes Adam in
the Garden of Eden, the Prodigal Son of Jesus' parable, the Pauline double personality at once devoted to and rebellious against God's law. Throughout he speaks the words of the Psalms as if he had written them. Crucial to Augustine's self-portrayal is his skill at transposing himself into the
texts.
He sees their properties and dynamics as his own, and by extension, every believing reader's own. In Christ Meets Me Everywhere, Michael Cameron argues that Augustine wanted to train readers of Scripture to transpose themselves into the texts in the same way he did, by the same
process of figuration that he found at its core. Tracking Augustine's developing practice of self-transposition into the figures of the biblical texts over the course of his entire career, Cameron shows that this practice is the key to Augustine's hermeneutics.
Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction: Ask, Seek, Knock: Approaching Augustine's Figurative Reading
Part I: Novice: Rhetor, Convert, Seeker of Wisdom (386-391)
1. Eureka! in Milan: When Ambrose Taught Augustine What He Already Knew
2. A Thousand Words is Worth A
Picture: The Experiment of On Genesis Against the Manichees
3. Enigma Variations: Figurative Reading Framework Under Construction
4. Book Binder: Christ the Core of Scriptural Unity
Part II: Journeyman: Priest, Apprentice, Student of Paul (391-396)
5. Reading Moses in the
School of St. Paul: The Apostle and Christology 101
6. Hearing Voices: Christ at Prayer ''in the Psalm and on the Cross''
Part III: Master: Teacher, Defender, Pastor of Souls (396-c. 400)
7. High and Low on Jacob's Ladder: Reading Scripture from Both Ends in On Christian
Teaching and On Instructing Beginners
8. The Old Testament as the First Book of the New: Augustine Figures It Out Against Faustus the Manichee
Epilogue: The Astounding Exchange
Tables
Bibliography
Indexes
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Michael Cameron is Associate Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Portland.
Making Sense - Margot Northey and Joan McKibbin
Inner Grace - Phillip Carr
Creating Augustine - Eric Leland Saak
Outward Signs - Phillip Cary