In his recent novel Island Mr Aldous Huxley says some very silly things about St Augustine, or to be quite fair he makes one of his ‘wiser’ characters say them. From them it can be deduced that all he actually knows about Augustine is the Confessions, or a vague impression about that work, massa damnata, and unbaptized infants. This is probably representative of what the average educated man knows about Augustine, and so he will readily accept Mr Huxley’s dismissal of the man as a neurotic rigorist predestinationist. But the average educated Englishman cannot be excused this absurd misconception much longer, for what is in fact a monumental biography of St Augustine, Augustine the Bishop by Professor F. Van der Meer, is now available in English. Describing Augustine’s death the author says this about him: ‘To his Church he bequeathed two things; the memory of his humble and indescribably lovable personality [so much for the neurotic pessimist], and his great library, the archive of his spirit’ (p. 274).

It is quite clear that Dr Van der Meer knows that library inside out, and that he has read every word of Augustine’s letters and sermons, which are the most self-revealing of his works. And so in an immensely readable 589 pages (excluding notes) he substantiates over and over again the humble and indescribably lovable personality of his hero. I feel bound to say that it seems a pity that the publishers have presented his work in a volume that is handsome indeed, and well printed, but whose weight (3 lb.) and price (£4 10s) can scarcely fail to deter many possible purchasers and readers. The book is really a classic. It has had to wait almost twenty years for translation into English - understandably, perhaps.