Font of Life Ambrose, Augustine, and the Mystery of Baptism
, by Wills, Garry
- ISBN: 9780199768516 | 019976851X
- Cover: Hardcover
- Copyright: 4/6/2012
One of the most important sites in the Christian world lies hidden under the piazza of the cathedral (Duomo) in Milan. Rarely visited, it is part of the foundations of a 4th-century cathedral where, at dawn on Easter of 387, a group of people seeking baptism, including Augustine, gathered after an all-night vigil. After Ambrose performed the sacrament, the catechumens were greeted by their fellows in the faith, including Augustine's mother Monnica and the two men who had taught Augustine his theology and philosophy, Mallius Theodore and Simplician. Though the occasion had deep significance for the participants, this little cluster of devotion was unaware that they were creating the future of the Western church. Ambrose, already a powerful leader, would go on to forge new liturgies, new forms of church music, and new chains of churches; Augustine would return to his native Africa to become bishop of Hippo and one of the most influential writers of Christianity of his time and ours. InFont of Life, Garry Wills uses this baptistry to chronicle a pivotal chapter in the history of the Church. In doing so, he highlights the often uncomfortable relationship between Ambrose, the cultured and influential official in imperial Milan, and Augustine, the ambitious man from the provinces with searching questions about his faith. In addition, the baptistry allows Wills to neatly explore two issues of paramount importance to the early Church: the sacrament of baptism and the incorporation of Neoplatonic philosophy into the Western faith. Wills provides a richly detailed account of this watershed moment in Western intellectual history while promising to make widely known an unjustly neglected early Christianity landmark.
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