Bluffton native David Beer, a member of faculty of Malone University, Canton, recently edited a book on the essays and lectures of Charles Norris Cochrane.

Title: Augustine and the Problem of Power
Subtitle: The Essays and Lectures of Charles Norris Cochrane

Beer describes Cochrane, who died in 1945, as an under-appreciated thinker of the last century responding to the political and spiritual crises that confronted Western civilization.

“Cochrane’s writings addressed the classical thought of the Greek and Roman world and the advent of Christianity,” said Beer. “But he was simultaneously paying attention to the current events of the 20th century and his studies are infused with the issues of political theory.”

Beer, a 2002 Bluffton High School graduate, holds an undergraduate degree from Georgetown 2007, a master’s from Catholic University of America and a doctorate in political theory from Catholic University. He is the son of Bob and Deb Beer of Bluffton.

Today he is an associate professor of political science and associate director of the Center for Christian Faith and Culture at Malone.

Beer’s interest in Cochrane began in graduate school.

“I started looking for more that he had written and discovered that he had died young and that his personal papers and manuscripts had only recently been placed in the archives at the University of Toronto,” said Beer. 

Since this material was effectively lost until his son died, Cochrane has been sorely neglected, continues Beer.

“Until now, no one has been able to see his last works and his unpublished essays. I also included some of Cochrane’s essays published during his lifetime in smaller journals, which were more difficult to find,” he said.

“(My hope is that through) making his material available historians, philosophers, political scientists, and theologians can now make an in-depth study of Cochrane’s contribution to intellectual history,” said Beer.

Beer explained background of Cochrane this way:
“He was Professor of Roman History at University College, University of Toronto.

“He is most famous for his “Christianity and Classical Culture: A Study of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine.” Just as he was becoming internationally recognized and famous for his work, he died and left this wealth of material unpublished. 

“His son, Hugh, kept his papers his entire life and no one was able to see them or publish his last set of lectures, "Augustine and the Problem of Power,” which Cochrane had delivered at Yale University Divinity School just before he died.

“When Hugh eventually passed away, Cochrane’s grandchildren donated his papers to the archives in Toronto, so that scholars could finally study his works and have a fuller picture of his thinking.”

Beer isn’t entirely finished studying Cochrane.

“I’m currently working on a follow-up book that develops Cochrane’s political philosophy, and I hope eventually to write an intellectual biography of Cochrane,” he said.

Attached below is a copy of the book cover.

About the book
Book title:
Subtitle: The Essays and Lectures of Charles Norris Cochrane
Edited by: David Beer
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
266 pages
$9.99 Amazon Kindle version
$30.00 Paperback version