ABSTRACT
Henri Marrou’s classic book, Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique (Paris, 1948) initiated what was to prove a far-reaching and influential debate concerning Augustine’s relation to late antique literature and culture. Its subsequent, rather unconventional appendix, or-in Augustinian fashionRetractatio (Paris, 1949), in which Marrou sought to amend, revise and temper some of his original opinions, is a measure of the liveliness of the debate that followed its first publication. Was Augustine simply a typical product of late antique culture-un homme de la decadence-someone whose education, work and written style betrayed all the marks of an overripe culture, a culture which had, as it were, gone to seed; its preoccupation with eloquent presentation largely obscuring any attention to content and truth? Or was he one of the first representatives of a new Christian culture, in which style was sacrificed on the altar of truth, and concern for eloquence was strictly subordinated to a desire to instil the message of the gospel? Of course, Augustine, like all the Church Fathers, belonged to both cultures. The question really was, and is, just how far he achieved, or failed to achieve, the difficult, almost amphibious movement, between them. How far was classical culture left behind? How much of it was taken up, adopted, transformed? How was this done? Can we speak of an emergent, distinctively Christian culture? What sort of culture was this?
