Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University. / The purpose of this dissertation is to set forth systematically and to analyze critically the theology of preaching of Aurelius Augustine, 345-430 A.D. Available source material was studied resulting in a subject index which disclosed the most promising lines of investigation. The dissertation deals with Augustine's theological orientation as it bears on his theology of preaching, the nature and purpose of preaching, the content of preaching, the method of preaching, and the actual preaching of Augustine. The guiding principle of Augustine's theology of preaching in his understanding of God as personal being. The God of the Christian revelation both is and cares for man. As the ultimate, God commands ment to preach through authorities He ordains in history: Scripture, church, and reason. As personal being in His ultimate reality, He compels men to preach. Men are moved to witness to His gracious love supremely demonstrated in Jesus Christ. The purpose of preaching is rooted in the nature of God. Theology of preaching proceeds from this revealed truth. It begins in metaphysics and issued in history. Theology of preaching is concerned throughout with God and man as personal beings, existing in an inviolable Creator/creature relationship in which God interacts with man without absorbing him. Preaching in instruction in the Christian faith. Christians preach because the God revealed in Jesus Christ commands and compels them to preach. The content of Christian preaching is the faith of the church, proceeding from belief in the Trinity, which faith is at once ultimate and existential truth. The method of preaching consists fundamentally in the personal preparation of the preacher as a Christian, the determination of the subject from Scripture, interpretation of Scripture according to sound principles, and communication to the hearers. Communication is from person to persons in the presence of God. Theology of preaching effects itself in the act of preaching for which it provides the origin and structure. Major issues of Augustine's theology of preaching are viewed in the perspective of some aspects of subsequent theological thought and homiletical method. Much later thought and practice is found to be illuminating, but revision is necessitated only in the area of Augustine's biblical exegesis. Augustine's theology of preaching is found to be biblically sound, classically Christian, and rationally coherent. [TRUNCATED]

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Thesis advisor: Robert C. Bartlett / In my dissertation I seek to contribute to the revival of interest in Augustine’s political thought by attempting to uncover his doctrine of eternal law. While absent from his mature writings, including the City of God, this doctrine is central to the investigation of justice in Augustine’s early writings. After considering Augustine’s summary of this early investigation in the Confessions, the most surprising feature of which is Augustine’s insistence on the importance of specifically political questions to his mature understanding of justice, I take up the two treatments of eternal law. In the dialogue On Free Choice, the eternal law is contrasted with the temporal law and is understood in terms of the fundamental command to “order,” which means in the first place wisdom, but also “right and honorable” action. In the anti-Manichean polemic Contra Faustum, the eternal law is presented as the will of God that commands the preservation of the natural order, which means that actions are truly just insofar as they conduce to “mortal health.” I argue that these two discussions of eternal law indicate the limitations of any kind of “higher law” doctrine. On Free Choice demonstrates the difficulty of breaking free of the guidance of temporal law and its harmonization of the demands of eternal and temporal law depends on an understanding of moral virtue whose independence is rather assumed than proven. Contra Faustum shows that the natural ends of self-preservation, procreation, and civic peace are only the beginning points of moral reasoning, since the pursuit of those ends is governed by further moral criteria that cannot easily be understood in terms of nature. In the end, then, I argue that the doctrine of eternal law, while illuminating a great deal about the problems of politics and morality as Augustine encountered them, points to the crucial importance of the question of human virtue and of acquiring the prudence that provides for this virtue in light of the necessary limitations of political life. It is probably for this reason that Augustine does not return to the doctrine in his later writings and does not rely on it in his reconciliation of the two cities in the City of God. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

In his three major polemical campaigns, that is, against the Manichees, Donatists and Pelagians, Augustine used imagery derived from medicine and was, in tum influenced by the language he used. While much of the language of sickness and disease remained conventional, some usages came to bear significant theological weight, notably infirmitas and contagio. The former became a designation for the culpable weakness affecting each member of the human race since the Fall. The latter became a technical term for the transmission of original sin associated with concupiscentia. Sickness imagery assumes the analogy of the soul and body, advancing his project to integrate the two parts of the human person. It also enabled him to discuss humanity's fallen nature without slipping into Manichaean determinism or Pelagian autonomy. Finally, sickness imagery enabled Augustine to suspend the tension between the inherited guilt and free-will in readily accessible metaphor. Images of health and healing also helped Augustine sustain tensions in his thought. But even more significantly, the image of Christ the Physician proved critical throughout his polemical career. Against the Manichees it is the Divine Physician who lays out the stages of sacred history according to a great therapeutic strategy for the human race. Against the Donatists it is the wisdom of the Physician who prescribes painful means of cure which is urged against Donatist complaints of persecution. Finally, against the Pelagians, Christus Medicus becomes a technical soteriological term. This family of metaphors, drawn from the Scriptures, classical literature, pagan religion and common experience appear time and time again. While they may have become commonplace in the writings of other Christian authors, in Augustine's polemical theology they came to shape and inform key aspects of his thought.

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M.A. (Latin) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

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In the present study, through a close reading of the Confessions , the author explores the concept of love in Saint Augustine as it pertains to the two possibilities of man, being towards the creation and being towards the Creator. He distinguishes two kinds of love corresponding to each one of these possibilities, love of the world (cupiditas) and love of God (caritas), and proceeds to analyze these loves. The main argument of the thesis is that these loves disclose the world to man in two opposed manners. The author argues that cupiditas seeks to find satisfaction in the creation and discloses it as an end in itself, whereas caritas loves the world for the sake of God and discloses it as a means to attaining God.