Remembering Augustine

<p>Augustine recognized memory to be pivotal in his journey to remember and know God. His theology of <i>memoria</i> is intriguingly complex and profound. An architectonic study of Augustinian memory reveals in greater depth Augustine’s logical and deeply personal approach to his interrogation of memory. Following Augustine’s lead this book has co-opted a transdisciplinary approach where Augustinian memory is explicated incorporating different specialisms. This is not a theology versus science text; it is a blending of the two where each ungirds the other. As such architectonics has unveiled four main neoteric discoveries that have made some of Augustine’s paradoxes regarding memory less enigmatic. First an architectonic structure of memory elucidating the symphonic forms and fundamental affordances of memory in <i>Conf</i>. X and earlier writings. Second the insights from the examination of Augustinian memory and Arc a unique memory gene. Third a model for the simultaneity of the three cardinal “moments” of time (creation incarnation eternity) with temporal time (past present future) and physical time illustrated by the Arc gene. Fourth the theory of recapitulation where <i>Conf</i>. XIII recapitulates I–XII viewed through creation and other motifs in <i>Confessiones</i>. It is hoped that this book will provoke a new way of thinking about Augustinian memory—a re-thinking of Augustine’s theology of <i>memoria</i>.<br /></p>