Pastoral lessons from Augustine’s theological correspondence with women

Prof. Dr Smither is participating in the research project, ‘Ecodomy’, directed by Prof. Dr Nelus Niemandt, Department Science of Religion and Missiology, Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria.Augustine of Hippo (354–430) was a fourth- and fifth-century monk-bishop who left a great imprint on the spiritual leaders of his day by overseeing the monastery at Hippo Regius and also authoring a significant corpus of letters that were pastoral in nature. What is often overlooked in the study of his pastoral ministry and, thus, the focus of this article, is Augustine’s theological correspondence with 15 different women. Through surveying the themes and issues in these letters, I have endeavoured to show that, though a monk, Augustine did care for women in his pastoral ministry and his letters show that he discussed with women many of the issues of his day (pastoral issues, church matters, monastic ideas, theology, and practical theology) that he also discussed with his male correspondents. In short, Augustine believed that these women were much like his mother Monica – capable of grasping biblical and theological issues – and he valued them as an important part of the church. I conclude the article by summarising Augustine’s approaches to and values for ministering to women.http://www.hts.org.zaam2016Science of Religion and Missiolog

Augustine's ethics

A survey of the central themes of the ethics of St Augustine of Hippo

Augustine on free will

[Extract] There is an enormous scholarly literature on Augustine’s account of free will, and it is remarkable for the range of views it contains. Historians of philosophy read Augustine on free will so variously that it is sometimes difficult to believe they are reading the same texts. One might suppose that this divergence of views is less a difference of historical opinion about Augustine’s account of the will than a difference of philosophical opinion about the nature of free will. But even scholars who are careful to make explicit what they mean by ‘free will’ still don’t agree about the nature of Augustine’s theory of free will. In my view, the confusing difference of interpretation in the literature arises at least in part because presenting Augustine’s theory of free will adequately requires the application of some philosophical nuances that scholars have not generally brought to bear on his texts