All but one of the essays were previously published in various sources.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 295-304) and index.

Augustine and the classical tradition. Facie ad faciem : visuality, desire, and the discourse of the other -- Who are we really? : a Platonist's contribution to Christianity -- Happiness in motion : desire and delight -- Augustine. Patriarchy as political theology : the establishment of North African Christianity -- Roman North African Christian spiritualities -- The body and human values in Augustine of Hippo -- Infancy, parenting, and nourishment in Augustine's Confessions -- Not nameless but unnamed : the woman torn from Augustine's side -- "Jesus patibilis" : Augustine's debate with the Manichaeans -- Sex and the city (of God) : is sex forfeited or fulfilled in Augustine's resurrection of the body ? -- Santa Maria Maggiore's fifth-century mosaics : triumphal Christianity and the Jews -- Vision : the eye of the body and the eye of the mind in Augustine's De trinitate and Confessions -- Augustine's successors. A sea of love : Marguerite Porete's A mirror for simple souls -- The mystical method of Meister Eckhart -- "The rope breaks when it is tightest" : Luther on the body, consciousness, and the word -- Theology, anthropology, and the human body in Calvin's Institutes of the Christian religion.