Augustine and the Origins of North African Anthropomorphism

Abstract

This article offers a reconstruction and analysis of the anthropomorphite beliefs of Augustine’s North African contemporaries through a close reading of Augustine’s writings and through comparison with other cases of anthropomorphism within early Christianity. I argue that the anthropomorphite faith of Augustine’s contemporaries in the North African church was more sophisticated than scholars have previously recognized. My argument is twofold. First, I show that, in the North African church, the belief that God has a human bodily form comprised part of a broader nexus of theological beliefs that grounded the belief that God has a human bodily form in anthropomorphic conceptions of the visio dei and imago dei. Second, drawing upon the work of Alexander Golitzin, I show that the anthropomorphite beliefs of Augustine’s North African contemporaries closely resemble the forms of anthropomorphism found in a diverse range of geographical locales, including Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia. Following Golitzin, I suggest that this resemblance can best be accounted for if we regard the anthropomorphite tendencies of the North African church as reflecting the ongoing influence of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic traditions regarding God’s bodily form.