En route to the confessions : the roots and development of Augustine's philosophical anthropology /
Napier, Daniel Austinauthor.
"En route to the Confessions charts the development of Augustine's various understandings of the human person by tracing his phased interactions with particular intellectual traditions and issues from his conversion until his composition of the Confessions.  The correlated alterations to Augustine's use of spiritual exercises for human development at each stage are also explored.  Augustine's anthropological thinking emerges therein as a series of strikingly fruitful yet thoroughly human systheses of ancient philosophic and Christian thought.  Augustine's philosophical resources and strategical alliances turn out to be much broader than most scholarly accounts have acknowledged.  In particular, Augustine made much more extensive use of Roman Stoic conceptualities and argumentative strategies in constructing his philosophical anthropology than heretofore considered." -- book jacket

Includes bibliographical references (pages [299]-321) and indexes.
"En route to the Confessions charts the development of Augustine's various understandings of the human person by tracing his phased interactions with particular intellectual traditions and issues from his conversion until his composition of the Confessions.  The correlated alterations to Augustine's use of spiritual exercises for human development at each stage are also explored.  Augustine's anthropological thinking emerges therein as a series of strikingly fruitful yet thoroughly human systheses of ancient philosophic and Christian thought.  Augustine's philosophical resources and strategical alliances turn out to be much broader than most scholarly accounts have acknowledged.  In particular, Augustine made much more extensive use of Roman Stoic conceptualities and argumentative strategies in constructing his philosophical anthropology than heretofore considered." -- book jacket
Pt. 1: The circular soul, salvific contemplation and the defect of action -- The circular soul in contemplation: the Cassiciacum Project and Augustine's early anthropology (386-387) -- Temporal soul, fallen bodies and the defect of action (Milan through Thagaste, 387-391) -- Pt. 2: Augustine's priestly discovery of redemptive action -- Augustine's invention of the heart: standing with Jesus between Plato and the Stoa (study leave of 391-394) -- The anthropology of grace: stoic compatibilism, psychology of the passions and grace irresistible (394-396) -- Pt. 3: The cracked self and beyond: Augustine's anthropology in the Confessiones -- Mirror of fallen nature: commendation to action and its perversion in Confessiones 1 -- Augustine's account of contemplation: preverse and redemptive ascents in the Confessiones.
Augustine, of Hippo, Saint, 354-430.
Philosophical anthropology.
Theological anthropology.