Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Augustine’s Confessions
- Cambridge Companions to Religion
- The Cambridge Companion to Augustine’s Confessions
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Circumstances of Composition
- Part II Main Themes and Topics
- Part III Reception and Reading Strategies
- 15 Manuscript Transmission, Critical Editions, and English Translations
- 16 Reception in the Middle Ages
- 17 Reception in the Period of Reformations
- 18 Reception during the Enlightenment
- 19 Reading (in) Augustine’s Confessions
- A Bibliographical Note
- Index
- Other Titles in the Series (continued from page ii)
- References
18 - Reception during the Enlightenment
A for Anti-Augustine
from Part III - Reception and Reading Strategies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 February 2020
- The Cambridge Companion to Augustine’s Confessions
- Cambridge Companions to Religion
- The Cambridge Companion to Augustine’s Confessions
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Circumstances of Composition
- Part II Main Themes and Topics
- Part III Reception and Reading Strategies
- 15 Manuscript Transmission, Critical Editions, and English Translations
- 16 Reception in the Middle Ages
- 17 Reception in the Period of Reformations
- 18 Reception during the Enlightenment
- 19 Reading (in) Augustine’s Confessions
- A Bibliographical Note
- Index
- Other Titles in the Series (continued from page ii)
- References
Summary
This chapter examines the reception of Augustine’s “Confessions” in the Enlightenment through three major lexicographical works: Pierre Bayle’s Historical and Critical Dictionary; Chevalier de Jaucourt’s entry in the Encyclopédie, “Church Fathers”; and Voltaire’s Questions on the Encyclopedia. All of them deliberately misappropriate Augustine's account of his life as a sinner in order to undermine aspects of his theology, and, by extension, the theology of Jansenism in their own era.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Augustine's 'Confessions' , pp. 295 - 316Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020