| Paper 1621-a | The Literary History of Augustine's Theology of Heaven
(Language: English)
Andrea Hugill, Trinity College / University of St Michael's College, University of Toronto / Faculty of Divinity, Toronto School of Theology
Index terms: Biblical Studies, Ecclesiastical History, Religious Life, Theology |
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| Abstract | Paper -a:
Augustine's proximity in time to the Early Christians of the Bible informed his writing on the natural and supernatural. By the 4th century AD, Christianity was well-established in North Africa, where three provinces had been under Roman rule for five centuries, while Punic language and culture lingered. Augustine's theology of heaven (found in De Doctrina Christiana, De Trinitate, and De Civitate Dei), Augustine's understanding of the heavenly host, angels, astrology and the liturgical calendar, and his descriptions of the temporal 'heavens' are considered, and it is argued that the sack of Rome in 410 inspired Augustine's theology of heaven.
Paper -b:
In the 440s, Salvian of Marseille accused the Christian aristocrats of Carthage of sacrificing to the goddess Caelestis (De gubernatione dei 8.9-17). Often cited as a testimony to the continuation of public, pagan cult until (or after) the end of Rome rule, Salvian's account does not withstand scrutiny. Comparison with the sermons and letters of an African eyewitness (Augustine) shows it to be a rhetorical exaggeration of Christian concessions to traditional custom. It holds little evidentiary value, and narratives of the end of paganism must rely solely on the limited archeological evidence, the legal data, and works of locals such as Augustine and Quodvultdeus.
Paper -c:
In late antique Egypt, the institutional church and its representatives constituted a major social force. Documents preserved on papyri and ostraca, dated to the 6th-8th c., show clerics participating in legal acts or acting as instruments of social control. However, they reveal also circumstances in which the clergy were exposed to lay scrutiny or made reliant on social actors from outside the church. The paper will attempt to trace the complexities of the networks of control and assistance existing between clerical and lay agents, using documents produced by and for the interested parties in the course of everyday activities.
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