Regis Martin
Who among us is erudite enough to set about measuring the immensity of the achievement wrought by Augustine, whose depths clearly defy one’s best efforts to plumb?

It was during the pontificate of Paul VI, who has since been raised to the altar, that a gathering of scholars arrived in Rome for a conference on St. Augustine. Drawn by the timeless attractions of the Doctor of Grace, they came, as was fitting, to the center of Catholic Christendom, the Eternal City, for learned and spirited exchanges concerning the greatest of the Church Fathers from the first millennium.
In the course of their meetings, they were received in a private audience with the Holy Father, who possessed more than a passing acquaintance with the mind and heart of the sainted North African bishop. In fact, around that same time, he’d been in conversations with the writer and philosopher Jean Guitton (The Pope Speaks: Dialogues of Paul VI with Jean Guitton, 1968), with whom he shared his admiration for Augustine, noting, among other things, the fusion of style and substance in his writings. “It is the Latin genius at its most perfect,” he said, intimating that here was the very essence of what it means to be a poet. “And with St. Augustine,” he added, “the poetry is that of truth, of the doctrine. It gives the doctrine its savor, its depth.”
So, when the Holy Father turned to the group, having learned why they’d come to Rome, he asked, “How does one study the ocean?”
Indeed. How, exactly, does one go about doing that? Where to begin? Faced with so vast and voluminous a legacy, is it even advisable to try? Who among us is erudite enough to set about measuring the immensity of the achievement wrought by Augustine, whose depths clearly defy one’s best efforts to plumb?  » Read More
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2025/04/seek-his-face-evermore-st-augustine-quest-god-regis-martin.html