Kevin G. GROVE. Augustine on Memory. Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. xi + 265. $69.96 (hc). ISBN-13: 978-0197587218. Reviewed by Pierre HEGY, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY 11530.

Researchers in many fields are interested in Augustine’s reflections on memory: philosophers in the light of Plato, phenomenologists of the inner self, social scientists interested in the collective memory, religionists meditating on religious remembrances, and theologians reflecting on Trinitarian logic. All tend to concentrate on only two texts dealing explicitly with memory, Augustine’s Confessions chapter 10, and his later work, On the Trinity. Kevin Grove breaks new ground by noticing that Augustine uses many words in reference to memory (recordare, cogitare, commemorare, delere, etc.) which allows him to discover that memory activities are mentioned in most of his sermons. His book offers the treasure trove of memory activities in Augustine’s preaching in the years between the Confessions and de Trinitate. The book is divided into eight chapters, presenting Augustine’s progressive investigation of the powers of the memory from childhood to death.

In his early writings, Augustine had discovered that memory is the core of his identity, the mediator between body and soul,  past and present,  and between a future of wisdom and the present. In these early wroks, memory is power but in the Confessions Augustine’s restless heart is unable to find the creator he feels drawn to. In his ascent toward wisdom, he progressively rejects the falsehoods of Platonism and, at the end of chapter vii, discovers Christ by reading the letters of the apostle Paul. In chapter viii he recounts the story of his conversion. The memory, “more intimate than myself,” seems to have no more role to play, unless we investigate his sermons.

After his ordination as a priest in 1991 and as a bishop in 1995, Augustine had to learn as he went, developing his theology as he preached. Ffollowing the tradition established since early Christianity, he preached on the psalms, and according to the standards of the time, he saw the psalms—all of them—as prophecies of Christ. Psalm 21, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” obviously refers to Christ, but this psalm could also be read as a model of human affliction relating to God. This is the experience, not just of individuals, but also of the whole Christian community, the “total Christ,” Now memory has taken on a collective dimension. This was a turning point.

There are three psalms that begin with the word Idithun (a word of unknown meaning to this day) which Augustine identified with the psalmist. According to the etymology of the time, Idithun means “the one who leaps across.” Hence the psalmist invites the readers to “leap across fields” and adopt multiple interpretations. Augustine interpreted these three psalms, and many others at a later stage, from the perspective of the individual and of the community, according to three different leaps—memory into Christ, memory out from Christ, and forgetting into Christ. Thus, in psalm 76, Idithun, the leaper, invites the whole community to leap into Christ as its end and head. In Psalm 61 he invited to leap “out of Christ” in care for the other members of Christ’s body. Finally in psalm 38, the lament of an individual in mortal illness, Idithun invites the patient to “forgetting into Christ,” following the example of Paul, ‘Forgetting what lies behind [and] straining to what lies ahead.” While in the first seven chapters of the Confessions, the ascent to wisdom through the power of memory failed, now the ascent to Christ through individual and collective memory is both a theory and a practice. (Chapter 3 in Grove).

“The Work of Remembering,” Grove’s chapter 4, is crucial. It leads from the practice of works of memory to identity in and with Christ.  In a first step, the self remembers its own brokenness. “My soul is full to the brim of deceitful fantasies, and there is no health in my flesh.” (Psalm 37). There is no escape: the memory cannot control it. The soul must fix its mind on Christ, not alone but with the help of the whole Christ, totus Christus. The healing of memory requires the interaction between self and others in Christ. In a second step, the soul must look backwards at the crucified Christ. Then through memory, Christ “is sacrificed daily in such a way as to renew us every day.” This process brings together the memory of sin, salvation, and community, and leads to an act of “confession,” that is, a profession of faith. The last step is “remembering forward in an eschatology of hope and mourning.” Through the memory of the future, the whole Christ reshapes its earthly remembering. Through the remembering of past sin, the work of salvation continues in daily renewal, and in the eschatology of the future, the believer finds identity in Christ through the total Christ of the community.

“The work of forgetting” is necessary because of tendency to get “stuck in the past,” of sin and salvation (chapter 5). In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus admonishes his disciples to “remember Lot’s wife” (17:31). For Augustine, the story of Lot’s wife is a metaphor for being stuck in the past and in the self. Lot’s wife is an example of individual stuckness while the Exodus provides an image of collective stuckness when in the desert the Israelites became mesmerized by the good food they ate in Egypt. Augustine’s model for moving out of a burdening past is Paul’s example of moving forward: “forgetting what lies behind.” Having been claimed by Christ, Paul strained “to what lies ahead,” toward God’s heavenly call to be one in Christ Jesus. Paul’s athletic model is the key to forgetting as work. It means moving forward into Christ out of one’s temporal embeddedness. This is also the model for the liturgy of Christian initiation in the rejection of evil and sin, and the affirmation of faith and hope. Paul’s model of forgetfulness in Christ is a common topic in Augustine’s sermons.

The chapter on the “work of memory” is a practical guide in the life of grace. Augustine uses binaries, like remembering and forgetting, as a way of exploring life in Christ for the individual and the community. Thus, the act of remembering draws the individual out of the self towards community, while the act of forgetting requires the self to move out of its individual stuckness to journey with others towards Christ. One can similarly examine various complementary pairs to gain insights about spiritual life. Of the four binaries presented by Grove, two are of universal interest. Work and rest require a balance that is always unstable. It is the restless heart that pursues hard work in which one can become stuck, while rest can become selfish isolation away from work. Work and rest also have a social dimension present in the secular culture and the liturgy. Solitude and communion are similar opposites that need to be reconciled at all times.

In summary, Grove’s Augustine on Memory is a landmark in Augustinian studies. It is a work in historical theology and as such it is only of indirect use for those investigating memory. Augustine investigated the acts of memory rather than the memory itself. Thus, the three basic leaps—memory into Christ, memory out from Christ, and forgetting into Christ–involve intelligence and will, which is more than just memory activities. The work of memory requires forgetfulness out of stuckness, and also to strain forward to what lies ahead. This process requires reflection and will, not just memory. Finally, the move out of the self to participation in the total Christ in service to others is more action than memory driven. What we find in Augustine on Memory are basic elements for prayer and preaching, rather than theories about the memory. But this is no mean accomplishment.