This volume aims to make available to scholars and students the developing thought of one of the major Augustine scholars of the latter half of this century, John J. O'Meara. The 23 essays of the collection, which originally appeared in a wide variety of journals or proceedings of symposia, are devoted mainly to the philosophical interests that contributed to Augustine's conversion to Christianity, and to the use and attitude towards Augustine by the 9th-century Irish philosopher, John Scotus Eriugena. The essays represent the span of O'Meara's scholarly life, from his Oxford thesis (1945), when he began to articulate his claim that Porphyry played a critical, but not exclusive, role in Augustine's conversion, to the works presented at recent centenary conferences in Toronto and Rome. The main themes covered are Augustine's approaches to love (including sexuality) and Neoplatonism, both constant and significant topics in the work of Augustine. Other profound matters that O'Meara discusses with great insight include Augustine's teaching on Creation and the Fall, and Augustine's views on the beatific vision. O'Meara also analyses the work of Eriugena - who in turn studied Augustine - and finds that Eriugena tried to interpret Augustine in Neoplatonic terms, and while the mix was sometimes rough, O'Meara reminds us that Eriugena's efforts do reveal an Augustine who relished the rational speculation of the Neoplatonists. This philological examination of a wide variety of texts including Augustine's "Confessions", "City of God", "Dialogues" and "Genesis Understood Literally", and Porphyry's "Philosophy from Oracles", is accompanied by a discussion of their interpretation with the leading Augustine scholars of our day. The continued interest in the work of O'Meara, as evidenced by recent articles in such journals as "Vigilae Christianae", "Revue des Etudes Augustiennes" and "Revue des Sciences Religieuses", should make this collection of scholarly papers a valuable contribution to the fields of late antiquity and patristics.
