On the Greatness of the Soul
Paperback (Forthcoming)
(January 2027)
ISBN: 9782503626383
Price: $82.00
An impressive yet underestimated work of Augustine, equally revealing his talents as dialectician, educator, and rhetorician
De animae quantitate (‘On the Greatness of the Soul’) presents an extended dialogue between Augustine of Hippo (354–430) and his friend Evodius of Uzalis (c. 360–430). Written in Rome in 387 or 388, the work centres on what its title announces, the soul’s greatness, understood in two distinct senses: its supposed bodily magnitude and its power or capacity. In an impressive display of learning, Augustine pursues three interrelated aims. First, he advances a series of arguments to show that the human soul is immaterial, against the views of Evodius and many other thinkers of antiquity. Second, he devises therapeutic exercises meant to moderate and ultimately extirpate the intellectual and affective vices that bind human beings to materialist conceptions of reality. Finally, through a laudatory and exhortative (epideictic) discourse on the soul’s powers, he articulates an understanding of the soul consonant with its true dignity and fulfilment.Whether or not one ultimately shares Augustine’s assumptions, arguments, and conclusions, this work continues to speak to modern readers through its masterful integration of dialectical reasoning, therapeutic practice, and rhetorical form. These elements, which predate the work and accompany Augustine throughout his career, proved influential for centuries and remain compelling even today. Beyond historical distance and differences in intellectual and affective commitments, they confer upon the text a greatness that transcends its age and still rewards careful engagement.
Other Titles in this Series
The Donatist Compendium of 427 and Related Texts
Exegetical Materials from a Dissident Communion
Volume 12
Peter of Ireland, Writings on Natural Philosophy
Commentary on Aristotle's On Length and Shortness of Life and the Determinatio Magistralis
Volume 9
Three Writings on Mystical Theology
Exposition of the Mystical Theology, Commentary on the Canticle of Canticles, On the Seven Steps of Contemplation
Volume 11
Lucifer of Cagliari, Concerning Athanasius
Why no one must judge or condemn a man in his absence
Volume 2
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