Even in Augustine's own day, his understanding of personhood and human nature came under scrutiny. While Pelagian bishops such as Julian of Eclanum, for example, complained that Augustine's doctrine of original sin still smacked of Manichaeism, some Christian monks concluded that his theory of grace was essentially Pelagian. He could scarcely win and not much has changed. From common criticisms of anthropological dualism to, say, the Heideggerian accusation that Augustine's doctrine of heaven and his ‘non posse peccare’ robs the human creature of precisely that which makes him or her human – free will – the Great Bishop's rich understanding of personhood is continually attacked. Peter Burnell, professor of history and classics at the University of Saskatchewan, has fortunately produced an excellent work capturing some of these main concerns so as to illumine Augustine's own insights.

Burnell opens by treating the union of soul and body and shows that while of course Augustine saw the human soul as higher than the body, he never disparaged the material. As belonging to two distinct orders of being, the human person is none the less one nature, straddling both heaven and earth. It is in this context that a discussion on the role and significance of gender also occurs. Chapter ii analyses the extensive term persona. This is basically an explication of Augustinian psychology: the nature of and relationship between various mental faculties, with special attention paid to the analogy between the imago dei and the life of the triune god. The various steps evident throughout the human condition are treated in chapter iii. Excellent here is Burnell's treatment of Augustine's hamartiology and humanity's primal union with the first Adam. Next comes human excellence, stressing the indispensable role of charity as linking not only human persons but also human with divine persons. As such, Burnell finds it necessary to enter the twentieth-century debate on the relationship between self-love and disinterested love.

Chapter v takes the reader through the indispensable connection between human nature and human society. An originally Platonic argument, the soul and the state are inevitably forged together. Realising how foreign they may sound to modern ears, Burnell very carefully amplifies Augustine's claims on coercion, torture and the state's service of the Church. Chapter vi returns to a more in-depth look at the human person's imaging of the divine. Burnell traces how the De trinitate distinguishes between human nature and the human person in this godly mirroring and proves himself to be one of the few contemporary scholars who understands how an anthropology and soteriology of deification runs throughout Augustine's mature theology. An epilogue concludes this work by offering some unsettled questions concerning the relationship between paradisiacal eternity and the flux of this fallen world.

At times Burnell could be more sympathetic to Augustine by including other texts (for example his understanding of the feminine, the role of the sacraments in reforming human nature) but this is a fine and very helpful work. Burnell understands Augustine's foes very well and fairly reproduces their arguments. As helpful as bringing so many various criticisms to the light may be, the value of this text ultimately lies in its providing Augustine's own teaching on the nature of person and what it should mean to be human.