Augustine on the Economy of Angels

Angelology is a major theme in Augustine’s important works such as The City of God, The Literal Meaning of Genesis and Enchiridion. This essay explains Augustine’s theology of angelic economy from three perspectives -- creation, governance and kingdom. 1) The relationship between the angelic economy and the creation: it is here argued that the economic ability of the angels is originated in the intellectual intuition of God and of the creation, as, even prior to creation, angels had already stored the created in their minds as concepts; 2) The relationship between the angelic economy and governance is originated in the concept of “divine apparition.” Angels govern as God’s agents, but their governance is impersonal; 3) The relationship between the angelic economy and the kingdom is originated in the union between the holy angels and the holy people, which occurs in God’s will. In this union, Angels act as guides leading human beings to the kingdom of peace. This essay also points out that Augustine’s angelology is related to his three major theological principles, i.e. the theories of creation, governance and salvation.

Augustine and the Humanists. Reading the City of God from Petrarch to Poliziano

Augustine and the Humanists fills a persistent lacuna by investigating the reception of Augustine’s oeuvre in Italian humanism during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In response to the call for a more extensive and detailed investigation of the reception of Augustine’s works and thought in the Western world, numerous scholars have addressed the topic over the last decades. However, one of Augustine’s major works, De civitate Dei, has received remarkably little attention. In a series of case studies by renowned specialists of Italian humanism, this volume now analyzes the various strategies that were employed in reading and interpreting the City of God at the dawn of the modern age. Augustine and the Humanists focuses on the reception of the text in the work of sixteen early modern writers and thinkers who played a crucial role in the era between Petrarch and Poliziano. The present volume thus makes a significant and innovative contribution both to Augustinian studies and to our knowledge of early modern intellectual history.

Da Garganta do Diabo à Cidade de Deus: Trajetos de uma etnografia entre a antropologia e a pesquisa-ação

Este artigo tem como objetivo contribuir para o debate sobre experiências de participação e ação social a partir de pesquisas antropológicas em interseção com a pesquisa- ação. Para tal, será apresentado um relato etnográfico sobre A notícia por quem vive, um jornal comunitário da Cidade de Deus, favela da Zona Oeste do Rio de Janeiro. Por mais de 6 anos moradores dessa favela e pesquisadores da UFRJ estiveram envolvidos em torno deste jornal a partir de um projeto de extensão. A análise terá como foco as relações entre os dois grupos cuja história teve um fim emblemático quando o primeiro deles decide romper com a UFRJ. Tomando este rompimento como ponto de partida, a finalidade é refletir sobre limites e potencialidades nas interações entre universidade e outros setores da sociedade, apontando para a importância de um olhar relacional sobre o tema e para a necessidade de repensar formas de pactuação e aproximação com aqueles com os quais pretendemos estudar.Palavras-chave: Antropologia. Etnografia. Pesquisa-ação. Favela. Extensão. From the Devil's Throat to the City of God: paths of an ethnography between anthropology and action research Abstract: This article aims to contribute to the debate on experiences of participation and social action from anthropological research at the intersection of research-action. To this end, an ethnographic report will be brought about A notícia por quem vive, a community newspaper from Cidade de Deus, a favela in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro. For over 6 years a group of residents of this favela and researchers from UFRJ have been involved around this newspaper from an extension project. The analysis will focus on the relations between the two groups whose history had an emblematic end when the first of them decided to break with the university. Taking this break-up as a starting point, the article aims to reflect on limits and potentialities in the interactions between the university and broader sectors of society, pointing in its conclusions to the importance of a relational look on the subject.Keywords: Anthropology. Ethnography. Action research. Slum, Extension.

Introduction

The Introduction sets the context of the project within scholarly suspicion that demons are an archaic holdover from the Christianity of Augustine’s historical setting. It proceeds to suggest that before demons are dismissed in this manner, a greater effort should be made to understand what Augustine means in the first place when he speaks of demons, and that this is the principle goal of the work as a whole. Following an overview of the chapter structure of the work, some notes on sources are offered to provide additional context for the project. First, the principal works of Augustine’s consulted throughout the study are identified, with particular attention paid to the City of God. After this, the principle sources Augustine himself used for his demonology are highlighted, especially Apuleius of Madaura and Porphyry of Tyre.

The Loss of the Roman West and the Christian Future

The Roman decline that Symmachus prophesized arrived in the West as the fifth century began. The first half of the fifth century saw Rome sacked in 410 and the empire then lose extensive territories in Gaul, Spain, and North Africa between the 410s and 440s. Christian thinkers like Orosius, Salvian, and Augustine struggled to respond effectively to pagan criticisms that Rome’s break with its pagan traditions had precipitated this loss of territory. Augustine’s City of God in particular asked Christians to privilege the community of God over the troubled empire of this world, an empire that nevertheless could still serve a beneficial purpose to Christians. Writing after the capture of Gaul by barbarians, both Sidonius Apollinaris and Paulinus of Pella embraced a post-Roman future in which Christian devotion remained meaningful even after their ties to the Roman state had ended. The Christian and Roman futures had now diverged in the West.

The Limits of Grief in Augustine of Hippo’s Sermones 172-173 and Sermo 396

This contribution explores select sermons of Augustine relating to the pastoral and existential phenomena of grief and human mortality (ss. 172-173 and s. 396). In particular, it evaluates these themes in conversation with philosophical reflections on human nature in the City of God, Books 13-14. Drawing upon Platonic and Stoic views in the latter, St. Augustine prefers a more compassionate and permissive understanding of human emotion in the former. Nevertheless, the author argues that while Augustine makes extensive textual appeal to Pauline and Johannine sources, which is likewise evident in his philosophical work, he remains implicitly committed to a cognitivist theory of emotion also in his preaching. In order to support this claim, I first present the philosophical traditions at work within the biblical horizon of the City of God, through a careful reading of pertinent texts, including work of Sarah Byers. Second, I attend to shifts of tone and emphasis detected in three public sermons, two of which have been successfully dated to 418 and 419, where evident differences of genre and audience help to account for Augustine’s heightened pastoral sensitivity. This comparative approach illuminates, finally, how the bishop of Hippo maintains philosophical continuity and navigates his pastoral responsibilities.