Carol Harrison – författare

Grieving at the tomb for her crucified Lord, Mary Magdalene encounters someone who she thinks is the gardener, but when he speaks her name she immediately recognises his familiar voice: Christ isn't dead, he is alive and stands before her! We each have a unique voice; we are known through its distinctive tone, accent or lilt; its physical sound conveys what is in our hearts as well as our minds; it reveals more than our words ever can and enables us to relate to and respond to others. Temporal and mutable; embodied, personal, and immediate the voice can be formative as well as informative; it can gesture as well as pin down; and whilst it can indeed be rational and discursive, it can also be affective and intuitive. Above all, the voice has an uncapturable, living, transforming, and disconcerting power. A Theology of the Voice presents a wholly new approach to the study of early Christianity, which has traditionally been presented in terms of the development of doctrine and the formulation of the creeds. It argues that in a context in which God is held to be unknowable and inexpressible, doctrinal and creedal formulations need to understood as beginnings rather than ends, and that early Christian reflection on the voice and vocal performance offers a fruitful way of understanding these formulations for what they in fact are: open-ended statements which gesture towards the truth but which can never fully capture it. This book therefore offers a new way of doing theology which resists the traditionally logocentric, rational, and often elitist focus of theology, and by focussing on the characteristic qualities of the voice from an inter-disciplinary perspective, takes account of the betweenness, open-endedness, and difficulty of all theological statements; of the importance of performance and of alternative modes of knowing (affective, tacit, participatory), which together make theology more widely accessible and effectively democratise doctrinal reflection.

Grieving at the tomb for her crucified Lord, Mary Magdalene encounters someone who she thinks is the gardener, but when he speaks her name she immediately recognises his familiar voice: Christ isn't dead, he is alive and stands before her! We each have a unique voice; we are known through its distinctive tone, accent or lilt; its physical sound conveys what is in our hearts as well as our minds; it reveals more than our words ever can and enables us to relate to and respond to others. Temporal and mutable; embodied, personal, and immediate the voice can be formative as well as informative; it can gesture as well as pin down; and whilst it can indeed be rational and discursive, it can also be affective and intuitive. Above all, the voice has an uncapturable, living, transforming, and disconcerting power. A Theology of the Voice presents a wholly new approach to the study of early Christianity, which has traditionally been presented in terms of the development of doctrine and the formulation of the creeds. It argues that in a context in which God is held to be unknowable and inexpressible, doctrinal and creedal formulations need to understood as beginnings rather than ends, and that early Christian reflection on the voice and vocal performance offers a fruitful way of understanding these formulations for what they in fact are: open-ended statements which gesture towards the truth but which can never fully capture it. This book therefore offers a new way of doing theology which resists the traditionally logocentric, rational, and often elitist focus of theology, and by focussing on the characteristic qualities of the voice from an inter-disciplinary perspective, takes account of the betweenness, open-endedness, and difficulty of all theological statements; of the importance of performance and of alternative modes of knowing (affective, tacit, participatory), which together make theology more widely accessible and effectively democratise doctrinal reflection.

Carol Harrison places Saint Augustine's theology in a new and illuminating context by considering what he has to say about beauty. She demonstrates how a theological understanding of beauty revealed in the created, temporal realm enabled Augustine to form a positive appreciation of this realm and the saving power of beauty within it. It therefore reintroduces aesthetics alongside philosophy and ethics in Augustine's treatment of God. Unlike previous works, it shifts the emphasis away from Augustine's early and most theoretical treatises to his mature reflections as a bishop and pastor on how God communicates with fallen man. Using his theory of language as a paradigm, it shows how divine beauty, revealed in creation and history, serves to inspire fallen man's faith, hope, and most especially his love - thereby reforming him and restoring the form or beauty he had lost.

How did people think about listening in the ancient world, and what evidence do we have of it in practice? The Christian faith came to the illiterate majority in the early Church through their ears. This proved problematic: the senses and the body had long been held in suspicion as all too temporal, mutable and distracting. Carol Harrison argues that despite profound ambivalence on these matters, in practice, the senses, and in particular the sense of hearing, were ultimately regarded as necessary - indeed salvific -constraints for fallen human beings. By examining early catechesis, preaching and prayer, she demonstrates that what illiterate early Christians heard both formed their minds and souls and, above all, enabled them to become 'literate' listeners; able not only to grasp the rule of faith but also tacitly to follow the infinite variations on it which were played out in early Christian teaching, exegesis and worship. It becomes clear that listening to the faith was less a matter of rationally appropriating facts and more an art which needed to be constantly practiced: for what was heard could not be definitively fixed and pinned down, but was ultimately the Word of the unknowable, transcendent God. This word demanded of early Christian listeners a response - to attend to its echoes, recollect and represent it, stretch out towards it source, and in the process, be transformed by it.

St. Augustine, the North African bishop of Hippo (AD 354-430), has been much studied. But there has been no systematic attempt to consider the context which shaped his life and thought. Augustine's long and controversial career and his vast literary output provide unrivalled evidence for understanding the diverse ways in which Christianity confronted, assimilated, and finally transformed the traditional society of late antiquity. This book sets Augustine in his cultural and social context showing how, as a Christian, he came to terms with the philosophical and rhetorical ideals of classical culture, and, as a bishop, with the ecclesiastical, ascetic, and political structures of late antique society. According to Augustine, the Fall of man and Original sin fracture and vitiate mankind's ability to know or to will the good. This is revealed as the keystone of his theology, effecting a decisive break with classical ideals of perfection and shaping the distinctive theology of Western Christendom.

St. Augustine, the North African bishop of Hippo (AD 354-430), has been much studied. But there has been no systematic attempt to consider the context which shaped his life and thought. Augustine's long and controversial career and his vast literary output provide unrivalled evidence for understanding the diverse ways in which Christianity confronted, assimilated, and finally transformed the traditional society of late antiquity. This book sets Augustine in his cultural and social context showing how, as a Christian, he came to terms with the philosophical and rhetorical ideals of classical culture, and, as a bishop, with the ecclesiastical, ascetic, and political structures of late antique society. According to Augustine, the Fall of man and Original sin fracture and vitiate mankind's ability to know or to will the good. This is revealed as the keystone of his theology, effecting a decisive break with classical ideals of perfection and shaping the distinctive theology of Western Christendom.

Carol Harrison counters the assumption that Augustine of Hippo's (354-430) theology underwent a revolutionary transformation around the time he was consecrated Bishop in 396. Instead, she argues that there is a fundamental continuity in his thought and practice from the moment of his conversion in 386. The book thereby challenges the general scholarly trend to begin reading Augustine with his Confessions (396), which were begun ten years after his conversion, and refocuses attention on his earlier works, which undergird his whole theological system.

Carol Harrison counters the assumption that Augustine of Hippo's (354-430) theology underwent a revolutionary transformation around the time he was consecrated Bishop in 396. Instead, she argues that there is a fundamental continuity in his thought and practice from the moment of his conversion in 386. The book thereby challenges the general scholarly trend to begin reading Augustine with his Confessions (396), which were begun ten years after his conversion, and refocuses attention on his earlier works, which undergird his whole theological system.

How did people think about listening in the ancient world, and what evidence do we have of it in practice? The Christian faith came to the illiterate majority in the early Church through their ears. This proved problematic: the senses and the body had long been held in suspicion as all too temporal, mutable and distracting. Carol Harrison argues that despite profound ambivalence on these matters, in practice, the senses, and in particular the sense of hearing, were ultimately regarded as necessary - indeed salvific -constraints for fallen human beings. By examining early catechesis, preaching and prayer, she demonstrates that what illiterate early Christians heard both formed their minds and souls and, above all, enabled them to become 'literate' listeners; able not only to grasp the rule of faith but also tacitly to follow the infinite variations on it which were played out in early Christian teaching, exegesis and worship. It becomes clear that listening to the faith was less a matter of rationally appropriating facts and more an art which needed to be constantly practiced: for what was heard could not be definitively fixed and pinned down, but was ultimately the Word of the unknowable, transcendent God. This word demanded of early Christian listeners a response - to attend to its echoes, recollect and represent it, stretch out towards it source, and in the process, be transformed by it.

What do we mean when we talk about 'being Christian' in Late Antiquity? This volume brings together sixteen world-leading scholars of ancient Judaism, Christianity and, Greco-Roman culture and society to explore this question, in honour of the ground-breaking scholarship of Professor Gillian Clark. After an introduction to the volume's dedicatee and themes by Averil Cameron, the papers in Section I, `Being Christian through Reading, Writing and Hearing', analyse the roles that literary genre, writing, reading, hearing and the literature of the past played in the formation of what it meant to be Christian. The essays in Section II move on to explore how late antique Christians sought to create, maintain and represent Christian communities: communities that were both 'textually created' and 'enacted in living realities'. Finally in Section III, 'The Particularities of Being Christian', the contributions examine what it was to be Christian from a number of different ways of representing oneself, each of which raises questions about certain kinds of 'particularities', for example, gender, location, education and culture. Bringing together primary source material from the early Imperial period up to the seventh century AD and covering both the Eastern and Western Empires, the papers in this volume demonstrate that what it meant to be Christian cannot simply be taken for granted. 'Being Christian' was part of a continual process of construction and negotiation, as individuals and Christian communities alike sought to relate themselves to existing traditions, social structures and identities, at the same time as questioning and critiquing the past(s) in their present.

This book explores early reflections on music and its effects on the mind and soul. Augustine is an obvious choice for such an analysis, as his De Musica is the only treatise on music by a Christian writer in the first five centuries AD; concerned not only with poetic metre and rhythm, but also with an ontology of music. Focusing on the six books of De Musica, the Confessions and the Homilies on the Psalms, Carol Harrison argues that Augustine establishes a psychology, ethics and aesthetics of musical perception, which considered together form an effective theology of music. For Augustine, music—both heard and performed— becomes the means by which we can sense and participate in divine grace. Composed by one of the world’s foremost Augustine scholars, this book is a concise and powerful exploration of Augustine’s writing and reflections on music and, by extension, the intimate relationship between music, religion, and philosophy.

This book explores early reflections on music and its effects on the mind and soul. Augustine is an obvious choice for such an analysis, as his De Musica is the only treatise on music by a Christian writer in the first five centuries AD; concerned not only with poetic metre and rhythm, but also with an ontology of music. Focusing on the six books of De Musica, the Confessions and the Homilies on the Psalms, Carol Harrison argues that Augustine establishes a psychology, ethics and aesthetics of musical perception, which considered together form an effective theology of music. For Augustine, music—both heard and performed— becomes the means by which we can sense and participate in divine grace. Composed by one of the world’s foremost Augustine scholars, this book is a concise and powerful exploration of Augustine’s writing and reflections on music and, by extension, the intimate relationship between music, religion, and philosophy.