Fallen angels in the theology of St Augustine / Gregory D. Wiebe.
"This book ventures to describe Augustine of Hippo's understanding of demons, including the theology, angelology, and anthropology that contextualize it. Demons are, for Augustine as for the Psalmist (95:5 LXX) and the Apostle (1 Cor. 10:20), the 'gods of the nations'. This means...
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| Online Access: |
Full Text (via ProQuest) |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Oxford, UK :
Oxford University Press,
2021.
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Series: | Oxford early Christian studies.
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | "This book ventures to describe Augustine of Hippo's understanding of demons, including the theology, angelology, and anthropology that contextualize it. Demons are, for Augustine as for the Psalmist (95:5 LXX) and the Apostle (1 Cor. 10:20), the 'gods of the nations'. This means that Augustine's demons are best understood neither when they are 'spiritualized' as personifications of psychological struggles nor in terms of materialist contagions that undergird a superstitious moralism. Rather, because the gods of the nations are the paradigm of demonic power and influence over humanity, Augustine sees the Christian's moral struggle against them within broader questions of social bonds, cultural form, popular opinion, philosophical investigation, liturgical movement, and so forth. In a word, Augustine's demons have a religious significance, particularly in its Augustinian sense of bonds and duties between persons, and between persons and that which is divine. Demons are a highly integrated component of his broader theology, rooted in his conception of angels as the ministers of all creation under God, and informed by the doctrine of evil as privation and his understanding of the fall; they take shape in his thoughts on human embodiment, desire, visions, and the limits of human knowledge; and they manifest most profoundly in his ecclesiology, through his theology of sacraments and religious incorporation, and its engagement with traditional paganism and its most intelligent supporters, the Platonists. As false mediators, demons are mediated by false religion, the body of the devil, which Augustine opposes with an appeal to the true mediator, Christ, and the true religion of his body, the church"--Publisher's description. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xvii, 258 pages) |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and indexes. |
| ISBN: | 9780192661142 0192661140 9780192661135 0192661132 9780191938405 0191938408 |
| Source of Description, Etc. Note: | Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (Oxford Scholarship Online, viewed on May 19, 2022) |