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Abstract:

What general principles make a commentary interesting to a reader? The main factor is a common hierarchy of texts, i.e. a common perception of the most authoritative texts among the author of the text, the commentator, and the reader. Another factor is a common understanding of the history of mankind, and the history of human thought among the same three. The third factor is the aim of the commentator. An optimal commentary tries not to teach the author, but to learn from him. The paper attempts to answer the question, how should be an adequate commentary on a text, written by a father of the Church. The paper reviews eight Russian commentaries of the 19th and 20th centuries on Augustine’s The City of God. It shows why the reviewed commentaries are inadequate. Most of them do not share Augustine’s attitude to the Bible as the most authoritative text. The most authoritative texts for the commentators were the texts of German classical philosophers — Kant, Hegel, or Marx. The commentators do not share biblical and Augustine’s perception of human history and the history of human thought, but believe in the progressive development of human knowledge, including world understanding. The commentators treaded the text not from the position of a pupil, but of a teacher, looking for and finding Augustine’s mistakes and defects. This attitude makes it impossible either to understand or to comment adequately on Augustine’s works.