The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Vol. 4: Studies in Tertullian and Augustine

by Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield

Publisher:

Faithlife

, 2008

Overview

Tertullian lived during the second and third century, and he helped the church refine its theology and defended it against pagan attack. He also helped articulate many of its central doctrines—in his writings we find the first usage of the word “Trinity” and the first mention of the Trinitarian formula—“three persons, one substance.” B. B. Warfield offers a biographical sketch of Tertullian’s life, along with an account of his historical and theological influence. The second part of Studies in Tertullian and Augustine is devoted to the life of Augustine. Warfield outlines the significant moments in Augustine’s life and summarizes his impact on theology in the Western Church. He includes chapters on Augustine’s doctrine of knowledge and authority, on Augustine’s Confessions, and concludes with a lengthy article on Augustine and the Pelagian Controversy.

Product Details

• Title: The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Vol. 4: Studies in Tertullian and Augustine
• Author: B. B. Warfield
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication Date: 1930
• Pages: 412

About Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield

Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield was born in 1851 in Lexington, Kentucky. He studied mathematics and science at Princeton University and graduated in 1871. In 1873, he decided to enroll at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he was taught by Charles Hodge. He graduated from seminary in 1876, and was married shortly thereafter. He traveled to Germany later that year to study under Franz Delitazsch.

After returning to America, Warfield taught at Western Theological Seminary (now Pittsburgh Theological Seminary). In 1881, Warfield co-wrote an article with A. A. Hodge on the inspiration of Scripture—a subject which dominated his scholarly pursuits throughout the remainder of his lifetime. When A. A. Hodge died in 1887, Warfield became professor of Theology at Princeton, where he taught from 1887–1921. History remembers Warfield as one of the last great Princeton Theologians prior to the seminary’s re-organization and the split in the Presbyterian Church. B. B. Warfield died in 1921.

Sample Pages from the Print Edition

Contents

Top Highlights

“The problem which Augustine bequeathed to the Church for solution, the Church required a thousand years to solve. But even so, it is Augustine who gave us the Reformation. For the Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine’s doctrine of grace over Augustine’s doctrine of the Church.” (Page 130)

“For what Tertullian had to do was to establish the true and complete deity of Jesus, and at the same time the reality of His distinctness as the Logos from the fontal-deity, without creating two Gods.” (Page 24)

“From his youth he was consumed by an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and was so inflamed by the reading of Cicero’s ‘Hortensius’ in his nineteenth year that he thenceforth devoted his life to the pursuit of truth.” (Page 113)

“The old world was passing away; the new world was entering upon its heritage; and it fell to him to mediate the transference of the culture of the one to the other. It has been strikingly remarked that the miserable existence of the Roman Empire in the West almost seems to have been prolonged for the express purpose of affording an opportunity for the influence of Augustine to be exerted on universal history.⁴ He was fortunate even in the place of his birth and formative years; although on the very eve of its destruction, Africa was at this precise moment, in the midst of the universal decadence, the scene of intense intellectual activity—into which he entered with all the force of his ardent nature.” (Pages 118–119)

“He was a man of the highest and most individual genius—intellectual, but far beyond that, religious—who had his own personal contribution to make to thought and life. If we cannot quite allow that there were in very truth many Augustines, we must at least recognize that within the one Augustine there were very various and not always consistent currents flowing, each of which had its part to play in the future.” (Page 119)

Product Details

• Title: The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Volume 4: Studies in Tertullian and Augustine
• Author: Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield
• Series: The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield
• Publisher: Faithlife
• Print Publication Date: 2008
• Logos Release Date: 2008
• Era: era:modern
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Tertullian, ca. 160-ca. 230; Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo; Trinity › History of doctrines; Knowledge, Theory of (Religion); Pelagianism
• ISBNs: 9780801096457, 0801096456
• Resource ID: LLS:WARFIELD04
• Resource Type: text.monograph.collected-work
• Metadata Last Updated: 2023-01-24T20:44:31Z

About Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield

B. B. Warfield (1851–1921) was a prolific writer, accomplished scholar, and ranks as one of America’s greatest theologians. After studying mathematics and science at Princeton University, he enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1873, where he was taught by Charles Hodge, in order to train for ministry as a Presbyterian minister. He later returned to America and taught at Western Theological Seminary (now Pittsburgh Theological Seminary).

In 1881, Benjamin B. Warfield co-wrote an article with A. A. Hodge on the inspiration of Scripture—a subject which dominated his scholarly pursuits throughout the remainder of his lifetime. When A. A. Hodge died in 1887, Warfield became a professor of theology at Princeton, where he taught from 1887 until 1921.

History remembers Warfield as one of the last great Princeton Theologians prior to the seminary’s re-organization and the split in the Presbyterian Church.

Warfield is known as one of Reformed theology’s most ardent defenders. The foundation to Warfield’s theology was his adherence to Calvinism as supported by the Westminster Confession of Faith and much of his writings are centered on this.

He has authored many books in his lifetime, including The Atonement and Modern Thought in the Classic Studies on the Atonement collection, Westminster Doctrine anent Holy Scripture: Tractates by A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, and the titles included in the B. B. Warfield Collection.