Augustine · history · history of Christianity · Peter Brown

The Body and Society

Death was a catastrophe that no contemplation of the universe could soften. And, in explaining death as the punishment of Adam, Augustine gave the Christian laity of his time an explanation of death that was at least as melodramatic as death itself was shocking. Yet, in so doing, he caused the cosmos (that majestic and… Continue reading The Body and Society

Augustine · philosophy · the soul · theology

Augustine and the Evolution of the Soul

By the term ‘soul’ (anima) Augustine meant the highest immaterial element in man, the art of man to which mind (mens, more rarely animus) is but a function. Exactly what ‘soul’ is and how God creates souls he regarded as beyond human knowledge. It would make for simplicity, he once remarked apropos of infant baptism,… Continue reading Augustine and the Evolution of the Soul