‘Not to depart from Christ’ : Augustine between ‘Manichaean’ and ‘Catholic’ Christianity

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Authors

BeDuhn, Jason D.

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AOSIS Open Journals

Abstract

The North African Manichaean community provided the setting in which Augustine reaffirmed a commitment to Christ and to ‘Christianity’ that he had largely abandoned in the years of his secular education, and it cultivated in him a positive relationship to ‘religion’ in addition to his personal fondness for ‘philosophy’. In both ways, his time with the Manichaeans formed an essential background to his later commitment to the ‘Catholic’ Christian community, and he continued to wrestle with that debt through his endeavours to convince Manichaeans that the Catholic Church could successfully address their earnest ‘Christian’ spiritual aspirations in a way Manichaean doctrine and practice never could.

Description

Contribution to ‘Augustine and Manichaean Christianity’, the First South African Symposium on Augustine of Hippo, University of Pretoria, 24−26 April 2012. Dr Jason D. BeDuhn is participating as research fellow of Prof. Dr Hans van Oort, Professor Extraordinarius, Department of Church History and Polity of the Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.
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Keywords

North African Manichaean community, Augustine, Catholic Christian community, Christ

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Citation

BeDuhn, J.D., 2013, ‘“Not to depart from Christ”: Augustine between “Manichaean” and “Catholic” Christianity’, HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 69(1), Art. #1355, 8 pages. http://dx.DOI.org/ 10.4102/hts.v69i1.1355