Augustine on the Couch: Psychohistorical (Mis)readings of the Confessions

While the history of religions (HR) has a long ‘prehistory’ in Romania, its formal introduction dates only from 1925–26, with the early writings of Mircea Eliade. Eliade's career in Romania was cut short by political events and the Second World War, while the imposition of Soviet control after the war resulted in his becoming an exile. His influence led a few of his compatriots to follow in his footsteps during the dark decades of Communism, but not until the overthrow of the Ceau?escu Government in 1989 did it again become possible to engage freely in HR studies. Today these studies are flourishing as never before and bidding to attract worldwide attention.     

Radical sophiology: Fr. Sergej Bulgakov and John Milbank on Augustine

Looking at John Milbank??s recent turn to Fr. Sergej Bulgakov, this paper argues that the theological and philosophical commitments they share are overshadowed by a deeper difference concerning the role each assigns the church in secular culture. It turns to Milbank??s roots in Augustine??s philosophy of history, which he argues could have allowed the church to overtake the pagan (which founds the secular) were it not for his distinction between the ??visible?? church and its deferred (eschatological) perfection. Bulgakov also criticizes Augustine??s doctrine of the church, or so he thinks. He actually misreads Augustine, accusing the bishop of holding a doctrine of the church that Milbank would have liked him to have held. This suggests that Bulgakov would not agree with Milbank??s view that the church should ??enact?? God??s judgment in history by opposing itself to the secular.