Slaves of God: Augustine and Other Romans on Religion and Politics, Alimi, Toni, South Bend, Princeton University Press, 2024 (ISBN 9780691244235), xx + 308 pp., Hb $35.00

Toni Alimi's superb engagement with, and historically contextualized treatment of, Augustine on slavery in Slaves of God illuminates the long and pernicious influence of Augustine's convictions on universal and eternal slavery.His revised Princeton dissertation and debut monograph both provides a rich reconstruction of Augustine's intellectual and theological influences and produces a thick description of the centrality of slavery to Augustine's thought.His book contributes to the growing body of scholarship addressing the problem of slavery in Augustine and the correlative influences on Christian hermeneutics, theology, ethics and political thought.Alimi's core argument is that slavery is an organizing concept in Augustine's thought on religion, ethics and politics.His book aims to accomplish three tasks: (i) to 'understand what Augustine believed the purpose of chattel slavery to be, and why' (p.4); (ii) 'to consider Augustine's conception of slavery to God and how he thought it related to chattel slavery' (p.5); and (iii) 'to examine how his understanding of slavery connects to his broader thought' (p. 6).To accomplish these tasks, Alimi has dug deeply into Augustine's Roman influences (Cicero, Seneca, Varro and Lactantius) and represents their views carefully and clearly.The book is divided into three main parts: 'Slaves of Men' (Part I), 'Slaves of God' (Part II) and 'Slavery and Liberty' (Part III).Part I introduces Augustine's view that chattel slavery functions as God's just punishment for humans, all of whom are always and already slaves of God.Here, Alimi identifies three of Augustine's core commitments regarding chattel slavery: 'first, that chattel slavery can benefit slaves; second, that chattel slavery is not inherently morally bad or wrong; third, that all humans are slaves of God' (p.15).Readers looking for a description of slavery in Augustine's time will find it in Chapter 1, 'Slavery as Augustine Knew It', which gives a historical overview of slavery in Roman society.