The Roots of Medieval Christianity, Part I:
Christ to Chalcedon
The twentieth-century Oxford poet John Betjeman once noted that in the pealing of church bells one could hear the last echoes of the Middle Ages. Several centuries earlier, Geoffrey Chaucer had also identified church bells as inseparable from medieval Christian culture. His Wife of Bath in her Tale recounts the wild days of King Arthur, when fairies still walked the land and danced upon the green, before the ringing of the church bells drove them into hiding. The bells Alisoun of Bath evokes and the bells Betjeman muses over stand at the opening and close of an historical continuum: they mark
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the waxing and final waning of Latin Christendom—of the Christian religion, that is, understood as a monolithic cultural force oriented toward, and ostensibly led by, the Bishop of Rome (the Pope). The spread of Christianity, via the Roman Church, throughout the lands of Western, Northern, and Central Europe was a process that took hundreds of years. Its advance in Roman antiquity and through the early Middle Ages was achieved by means at turns peaceful and violent, through persuasion or coercion or sometimes through a slow and quiet cultural diffusion. By early modernity, the civilization of Latin Christendom that emerged by the High Middle Ages had lost much of its near-monopoly on the European psyche, and much of its political clout, but it has nonetheless left its indelible mark even on our contemporary secular world.
Medieval Christianity, of course, has its origins in the world of Hellenistic-Roman antiquity. The earliest first-century followers of the charismatic rabbi Jesus of Nazareth clearly viewed their leader as a teacher and miraculous healer who was not afraid to challenge the hypocrisies of the political and religious status quo. They also came to credit his claim to be the long-prophesied Messiah (or, in Greek, "Christ"), who would lead the Jewish people to a decisive victory against their oppressors; many of Jesus's followers also believed his claim to be the Son of God himself. After Jesus's crucifixion at the hands of Roman authorities in Jerusalem in about 30 CE, it is clear that reports of (and sincere belief in) his resurrection from the dead galvanized his followers into action. They formed tight-knit communities focused on mutual aid, acts of charity (especially to the sick and indigent), fasting, biblical study, a ritual cleansing (baptism), and worship of the Jewish God, and they were dedicated to spreading the evangelion, or Gospel: the "good news" that Jesus' earthly ministry, death, and resurrection had manifested the power of God, redeemed humankind, and renewed the world. In the later decades of the first century, especially after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by Roman armies, this "Jesus movement" began to differentiate itself from the various
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Jewish sects that were realigning at that time and that would later emerge as classic rabbinic Judaism. It found new converts among the Jewish communities scattered throughout the Roman Empire, as well as among many non-Jews: women, shopkeepers, slaves, and countless others who found themselves either excluded from the avenues of political power or, like the centurion Cornelius of Acts 10, were in search of the new modes of spirituality and human relationship that the Jesus movement had to offer.
The Roman authorities remained suspicious of the fledgling religious movement, viewing the Christians as atheists (because they spurned the cult of the divinized emperors and instead worshiped an unseen God and a crucified criminal), as incestuous (perhaps because of the inclusive nature of their weekly "love-feasts," or of their habit of referring to members of their communities as “brother” and “sister”) and as cannibals (because their Eucharistic ceremonies were rumored to involve the uncanny ingestion of their God). It is a testament to the strength and unwavering devotion of the early Christians that their movement survived the sporadic persecutions—including the martyrdom of many of its apostolic leaders—that plagued the first generations of its existence.
By the end of the first century CE, and throughout the second century, Christians were spreading throughout the cities of the Roman Empire. And while the early Christians continued to experience political marginalization and intermittent violent persecutions, they also found stability within the communities they founded. The offices of presbyter (priest) and diaconus (deacon) were established to lead acts of worship and to coordinate charitable outreach, and the office of episcopus ("overseer" or bishop) to provide community leadership. Something like a standard liturgy, or order of religious worship, began to emerge. And it also seems clear that a loose canon of the most important writings relating to the life of Jesus and his earliest followers had already coalesced by the early second century: this would become the New Testament.
At the same time, the Christians of these early centuries adapted to and interacted with the cultures around them in various ways, and, over time, religious and philosophical differences emerged. By and large, these tended to involve how Christians saw their religion as entwined, on the one hand, with Judaism, and, on the other hand, with the intellectual inheritance of the |
Hellenistic world, especially Platonism. In many cases, these differences were simply a matter of flavor and emphasis, but—as is the case with the Ebionites, and the Docetists, and the Gnostics—sometimes sub-groups of Christians nourished ideas incompatible with what was emerging as normative (later "Catholic") Christian life, and these positions would later be labeled heresies. (Much—probably far too much—has been made of some of these heresies as in fact representing the "true" or "inner" teaching of Christianity: ours is an age that thrives on controversy and sensationalism.) What is clear is that both heresies from within the Christian world and intellectual challenges from Greco-Roman philosophy—as well as the enduring threat of persecution—gave Christians of the second and third centuries ample opportunity to consolidate a body of doctrine and standard practices: the apologetic works of Justin Martyr (d. ca. 165 CE), Irenaeus (d. 202 CE), Tertullian (d. 240 CE), and Origen (d. 253 CE), all conceived in response to challenges to the Christian faith, laid the groundwork for the more systematic theological thought of later centuries.
The third century CE was not good to the Roman Empire. But amid the large-scale economic collapse, barbarian invasions, political chaos, breakdown of infrastructure, persecutions, and pandemics of those years, the tight-knit Christian communities steadily grew and, indeed, began to attract more high-profile sympathizers and converts, including many mid-level officials and even the occasional provincial governor or member of the imperial household. During the turbulent third century, even as the Roman Empire split into Eastern and Western jurisdictions (each with its own emperor), the Christian communities of Italy, Gaul, Spain, and North Africa looked increasingly to the Bishop of Rome for pastoral guidance and leadership. They also began to generate translations from Greek into Latin of their holy texts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. This translation (or, rather, compilation of separate translations made by different communities) would be known as the Vetus Latina, or "Old Latin" Bible, and would be gradually replaced in the early Middle Ages by St Jerome's much more rigorous "Vulgate" translation of the fourth century.
A major turning-point in the history of Christianity came in the early years of the fourth century, during the reign of the Emperor Constantine the Great, who not only converted to the Christian faith (though he was baptized only on his deathbed), but in the Edict of Milan (313 CE) removed legal restrictions on the faith and ended persecution and the confiscation of Church properties. The reasons for Constantine's personal conversion, and for the sudden about-face in broader Roman attitudes toward Christians, is obscure. Some historians not unreasonably assume that Constantine's policies were dependent upon the considerations of Realpolitik; the emperor may have calculated that the time was ripe for courting the support of the ever-growing Christian communities. Others, following some of the earliest (if more obviously biased) sources, see Constantine as having experienced something like a true religious conversion: influenced by his mother Helena's faith, Constantine may have held the Christian God responsible for his victory over political rivals at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. (An almost contemporary legend tells of how the emperor had a dream that if he painted the shields of his soldiers with the Chi-Rho sign of Christ, he would triumph in battle.) In any case, the legal changes he instituted not only
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decisively made the Roman Empire safe for Christianity (despite a brief interval during the reign of the later emperor Julian the Apostate, 361-363 CE), but it also laid the groundwork for Rome to become a Christian empire: Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire by the Edict of Thessalonika in 380 CE.
The new official status granted to the Christianity in the fourth century significantly changed the character of the religion. Where it had been a minority religion of tight-knit communities and a mainly self-selecting constituency, it now became mainstream—"respectable," even—and the numbers of its adherents by the end of the fourth century had exploded. Partly as a reaction to this new-found popularity, many of the more serious-minded and ascetic Christians
"A hermit saw someone laughing, and said to him, ‘We have to render an account of our whole life before heaven and earth, and you can laugh?’" — The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks, trans. Benedicta Ward, p. 17 |
sought to withdraw from society and live a solitary life of contemplation and prayer far from the madding crowds: this was the birth of Christian monasticism. As Michel Foucault and others have shown, the ascetic aspects of these early Christian hermit-monks was influenced by Hellenistic Stoicism (especially in its
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Epictetan variety) as well as with the general rejection of matter, and of the body in particular, espoused by Neoplatonic philosophy. The earliest monks were the so-called Desert Fathers and Mothers, so named because the Egyptian desert was the most well-known destination for their retreats; St Anthony of Egypt was the most famous among them, and his example set a bench-mark for the many monastic orders that would arise in later centuries.
The newfound legitimacy of Christianity in the fourth century also influenced the development of women's roles within the faith. From its earliest days, Christianity had emphasized—in contrast to both Jewish and Hellenistic models—the importance of women: the New Testament not only highlights the Virgin Mary, but it also draws attention to Jesus's other female followers (Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha of Bethany, Susanna, and others) and to female leaders within the early Church (Lydia, Prisca, Junia, Phoebe, and others). Early Christianity seems to have endorsed the radical spiritual equality between women and men in the eyes of God (see Galatians 3:28).
The newfound legitimacy of Christianity in the fourth century also influenced the development of women's roles within the faith. From its earliest days, Christianity had emphasized—in contrast to both Jewish and Hellenistic models—the importance of women: the New Testament not only highlights the Virgin Mary, but it also draws attention to Jesus's other female followers (Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha of Bethany, Susanna, and others) and to female leaders within the early Church (Lydia, Prisca, Junia, Phoebe, and others). Early Christianity seems to have endorsed the radical spiritual equality between women and men in the eyes of God (see Galatians 3:28).
As the religion developed and grew, its more egalitarian instincts collided with the Roman patriarchal establishment: many of the lives of the virgin martyrs during the age of persecutions show the valiant resistance of Christian women toward marriage with pagan men. Especially notable here is the case of St Perpetua (d. ca. 203 CE), who defied both her family's wishes and the Roman authorities and who died, almost as a gladiator, in an arena in Carthage. It is clear too that there were many learned Christian women in the earliest centuries; St Macrina (d. 379 CE), from a long line of Christian matriarchs, stood as both a spiritual and intellectual mentor to her more famous brothers, Gregory of Nyssa and Basil of Caesarea. But as Christianity became more normative in the fourth and fifth centuries, and as ascetic ideals became more widespread, the roles that women took became more limited. For wealthy Christian women, of course, there were always opportunities: the writings of Egeria recount one woman's quite comfortable pilgrimage from Gaul to the Holy Land. More typically, women took on the role of patrons of monastic houses or of (male) Christian writers. The wealthy Paula and her daughter Eustochium, for example, were Roman patricians who cultivated the friendship of St Jerome, traveled with him to Egypt and the Holy Land, founded religious houses, and served as the addressees of much of Jerome's most perceptive and humane correspondence. These women perhaps stood as the models for the powerful women of later centuries who would play such crucial roles in the transmission and consolidation of Christianity throughout the lands of the barbarian West. Theodelinda among the Lombards; Chlothilde, Brunhild and Radegund among the Franks; Bertha among the Kentish; and, much later, even Margaret of Scotland—played vital roles as "influencers," wielding soft power and providing material support for the burgeoning faith. But while such women were honored for their contributions and generally known for their personal piety, they exerted little effect on the development of Christian theology or on any of the larger ways the Church thought of itself in the world.
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The political and cultural power that came with the Emperor Constantine's conversion also allowed the Christian religion to more clearly delineate an "orthodox" body of theological doctrine. This happened most famously at the Council of Nicaea (325 CE), which was convened by the Emperor Constantine himself in order to officially consider the Christological teachings of the Alexandrian priest Arius. Arius taught that Jesus, as the Son of God, was subordinate in power and being to God the Father, a sort of demigod or super-saint rather than an essential identity of God himself. The majority of the approximately three hundred or so bishops who attended the council decided against Arianism and instead articulated, in the so-called Nicene Creed, an official statement of the doctrine of the Trinity: the Nicene
God was one substance (one Being) consisting of three Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. While this Trinitarianism was itself nothing new in Christian theology, the alliance of the Christian Church with the political power of imperial Rome now made dissenters from the official position into heretics, anathema to the Christian community as a whole and potential enemies of the state. The century following Nicaea saw a number of other ecumenical councils that continued to define and refine the Church's theological positions: the Council of Constantinople (381 CE), the Council of Ephesus (430 CE), the Council of Chalcedon (451 CE). And although the modern Roman Catholic Church, as well as most other Western churches (Lutheran, Anglican, Baptist, etc.), agree upon the tenets of these early councils, other Christian churches (the Oriental Orthodox churches, the Assyrian Church) parted ways during the fourth and fifth centuries over one emergent point of orthodoxy or another. It is telling that it was during this period of the early ecumenical councils that the term "Catholic" was first officially recommended (by no one less than the Emperor Theodosius) to distinguish between the adherents of orthodox Christianity from those holding any number of possible heretical positions.
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While the construction of a definitive, binary break between orthodoxy and heresy doubtless involved the closing of many doors of potential inquiry, this Age of Constantine also stimulated what is perhaps Christianity's greatest century of theological writing, as thinkers applied all the resources of their hearts and minds both to the further articulation of doctrine and to the application of Trinitarian theology to the Christian life. Athanasius of Alexandria (ca. 298-393 CE) was the architect of Nicene orthodoxy and a tireless proponent of the doctrine of the Trinity, even in the
St Ambrose of Milan (c.340-397 CE). This able and urbane governor was appointed bishop of Milan by popular acclamation. Combining the roles of serious theologian and public figure, his copious achievements show the many dimensions that Christian life could assume after its fourth-century legalization.
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face of the emperor's inclination toward Arianism; his finest book, On the Incarnation, provided a concise overview of Christian theology and can still be fruitfully read today. The works of the so-called Cappadocian Fathers of the mid-fourth century—Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa—further worked out the full implications of the idea of the Trinity and even entertained ideas such as universal salvation. They became an indirect influence on the medieval theology after the ninth century, when some of their works were translated from Greek into Latin by John Scottus Eriugena. In the Latin-speaking, western half of the Roman Empire, other theologians were in their heyday. The sophisticated and practical bishop Ambrose of Milan (ca. 340-397 CE) was known for his administrative skills, his pastoral acumen, his biblical exegeses, his moving hymns, and his popular sermons, but perhaps especially for his immensely influential works of moral theology, all attempts to explain how the tenets of the Christian faith translate into a practical life lived in the real world. Without a doubt, Ambrose's most influential and talented protegé was a man who read his works, heard his sermons, and was eventually baptized in the sacristy of Ambrose's own cathedral by the bishop himself: Augustine of Hippo.
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There is no more influential theologian in the Latin West than Augustine (354-430 CE), the bishop of Hippo in North Africa. His life and works serve as a very valuable touchstone for gauging the ways in which Christianity had infiltrated the Roman world in the wake of Constantine's reforms. In his Confessions—a spiritual autobiography documenting the author's long process of his own conversion to the Christian faith—Augustine demonstrates the appeal of the Christian worldview to the intellectual ambit of pagan Rome: the young Augustine, leading a (relatively) dissolute life in pursuit of the civic honors of the Roman world, seeking and gaining acclaim as a teacher of rhetoric, comes—step-by-step—to recognize the compelling validity of the Christian worldview. Along the way, he demonstrates the superiority of Christianity not only to standard Roman paganism but also to Ciceronian ethical philosophy, to Manichaeanism, and to Neoplatonism; he does show, however, how closely Platonism approximates a Christian perspective (especially in the writings of the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus) and how Platonism can actually enrich and philosophically enliven Christian thought. Even more, the Confessions, as well as many of Augustine's copious later writings, highlight the extent to which prayerful contemplation of the Christian God can function as a means of thinking through any number of other phenomena: cultural practices, political formations, world history, linguistic theory, literary interpretation, etc. Indeed, the range and content of Augustine's set the agenda for much of the philosophy and theology of the Latin West for the next thousand years. Augustine also did not shy from polemic, and his writings against the Pelagian heresy of the early fifth century brought him to articulate the idea of predestination and the doctrine of Original Sin. (Both of these have been borne very dubious fruit in the history of the Western Churches, though Rowan Williams and others have noted how much of Augustine's thought has been unhelpfully deracinated from its original contexts, sometimes to the detriment of later theology.)
The book Augustine worked on most persistently for the last decade of his life was The City of God (Civitas Dei), a near-encyclopedic compendium of intelligent Christian arguments on all manner of political, intellectual, and theological matters. Famously, Augustine distinguishes the "earthly city"—the world of
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"Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self; the heavenly by the love of God." — Augustine of Hippo, The City of God |
political ambitions and military conquests, of secular culture and entertainments, of bread and circuses, of pomp and circumstance—with the "City of God," a city not of this world but a heavenly or paradisal kingdom consisting of the collectivity of God's faithful (the Church) through all the centuries, all enjoying the bliss of the presence of God. Augustine's book stands as a penetrating political and cultural analysis, and yet it also is a farewell to politics and culture and the world. Tellingly, much of the book had been written in the wake of the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 CE. Augustine found it difficult, it seems, to continue to believe that the marriage of the Church with the Roman state could continue to be a viable path forward in an ever-changing world: Rome was not, and could never be, the New Jerusalem. Not long after completing The City of God, Augustine died—of illness and old age but also while his home city of Hippo in North Africa was under a long siege by Vandal marauders.
The Visigoths and the Vandals, both tribes of (pagan) Germanic barbarians who had invaded and forcibly seized Roman territories in the early fifth century, were only the beginning of the death-throes of the Western Roman Empire: Ostrogoths, Huns, and other invading migratory peoples would follow, each wave weakening Rome further. At the same time, theological controversies threatened the unity of the Christian Church, and these concerned perhaps one the most important items of Christian belief: the nature of Jesus Christ himself. The Nicene Creed of 325 CE had definitively established Christ as a co-equal with God the Father and the Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity. But now the issue involved the Incarnation: how could Christ be both human and divine? In his specific incarnate, human,
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first-century Galilean form, was he omniscient? Was he omniscient as a child in Nazareth? Were the miracles of Jesus—his multiplication of the loaves and fishes, or his turning water into wine, or his walking on water—things he did as a man or as God? Or both? Was Jesus a sort of hybrid, sometimes human and sometimes divine? Was the humanity of Christ completely absorbed or subsumed into his divinity? If Christ was not fully human, was the agony of his crucifixion merely a sham, and thus not a real sacrifice? The New Testament provided no definitive answers, and yet the increasingly institutionalized Church demanded doctrinal clarity. The patriarchates centered on Antioch and Alexandria in particular developed ideas at odds with each other, and both resented the political power of the church of Constantinople. A rough compromise—that Christ somehow comprised two completely separate selves (human and divine)—led to a schism, and the views of Nestorius, the bishop of Constantinople, were condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431. Few were satisfied with the Christological definitions of Ephesus, however, and further controversy and schism loomed large.
The Council of Chalcedon, convened in 451 CE, offered a clearer and more refined statement of the Christological controversy. As the Council declared, Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, possessed two natures: in his Incarnation, he was simulteaneously both fully human and fully divine. Partly on doctrinal grounds and even more because of political machinations and court intrigue, this—the so-called “Chalcedonian Definition” or "Chalcedonian Formula"—precipitated large schisms within the Church: the Alexandrian church and the churches of Asia (Mesopotamia, Assyria, etc.) defied this new formulation in the face of the churches of Rome and Constantinople, who supported it. And so the Christian world was split between the monophysite churches (who insisted that Christ had only a single, divine nature) and the churches under Roman and Constantinopolitan jurisdiction, which would develop into the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches respectively. The churches of Egypt and the East eventually went their own ways, and they would be much diminished in the face of Muslim domination from the seventh century onwards.
The Council of Chalcedon, convened in 451 CE, offered a clearer and more refined statement of the Christological controversy. As the Council declared, Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, possessed two natures: in his Incarnation, he was simulteaneously both fully human and fully divine. Partly on doctrinal grounds and even more because of political machinations and court intrigue, this—the so-called “Chalcedonian Definition” or "Chalcedonian Formula"—precipitated large schisms within the Church: the Alexandrian church and the churches of Asia (Mesopotamia, Assyria, etc.) defied this new formulation in the face of the churches of Rome and Constantinople, who supported it. And so the Christian world was split between the monophysite churches (who insisted that Christ had only a single, divine nature) and the churches under Roman and Constantinopolitan jurisdiction, which would develop into the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches respectively. The churches of Egypt and the East eventually went their own ways, and they would be much diminished in the face of Muslim domination from the seventh century onwards.
We might well end this survey of the earliest centuries of Christianity with a parting glance at Pope Leo I (d. 461 CE). It was Leo (one of the few popes with the sobriquet "the Great") who authored the text of the Chalcedonian definition, which he sent via his representatives to the council in the form of a lengthy letter known as "the Tome of Leo." Leo, himself, did not—or dared not—attend the ecumenical Council because of the state of affairs in Italy. Earlier that same year, Attila the Hun, leading armies of many thousands of cavalry, swept through the provinces of Belgica and Gaul and pushed on into Italy. Desperate, Leo was sent by the Roman emperor to negotiate Attila's withdrawal. There is no clear account of the embassy (if we discount the miraculous interventions that Prosper of Aquitaine and others report), but, whatever transpired, Leo somehow managed to convince the hitherto indomitable Attila to stand down. Leo's gambit increased the power and prestige of the papacy, laying the groundwork for Roman
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religious leadership throughout the Middle Ages. However, although Attila would die the following year, the Western Empire's borders had again proven untenable, and a weakened Rome seemed poised to give way to new sorts of political formations. The Catholic Church centered at Rome would persist and adapt.
[Click here to proceed to The Roots of Medieval Christianity, Part II: Christianization and the Barbarian West]
Further Reading
- Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. William R. Trask, intro. Edward Said (Princeton University Press, 2013)
- Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation, trans. John Behr (St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2012)
- Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000, rev. ed. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013)
- Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, rev. ed. (Penguin Books, 1993)
- The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks, trans. Benedicta Ward (Penguin Books, 1993)
- Early Christian Writings, rev. ed., trans. Maxwell Staniforth and Andrew Louth (Penguin Books, 1987)
- Eusebius, The History of the Church: From Christ to Constantine, trans. Andrew Louth (Penguin Books, 1990)
- Lives of Roman Christian Women, ed. Carolinne White (Penguin, 2010)
- Paula Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism (Yale University Press, 2010)
- Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the Resurrection (St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1993)
- Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks, trans. Lewis Thorpe (Penguin Books, 1974)
- Irenaeus of Lyons, On the Apostolic Preaching, trans. John Behr (St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1997)
- R. A. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge University Press, 1990)
- Ekkehard W. Stegemann and Wolfgang Stegemann, The Jesus Movement: A Social History of Its First Century (Fortress Press, 2001)
- Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (Yale University Press, 2005)
- Rowan Williams, On Augustine (Bloomsbury Continuum, 2016)