La relación de identidad de los cristianos del norte de África con la ejercitación espiritual, en las cartas de Agustín

Abstract

In contributing to the debate on the transformation of late Roman world, some scholars have claimed that the boundaries between religious groups were fluid with external and internal factors. Christian identity was not characterised by clear indications of religious belief, observance, and practice. Some intriguing surveys have shown that the difference between Christians and pagans can be seen as part of a discursive binary. While the North African evidence of their identity allows us to consider the question of what it means to be a Christian, it is noteworthy that there is a comprehensive framework for the understanding of human behavior and thought: the ‘spiritual exercises’ in the Greco-Roman tradition. In the fourth and fifth centuries, Christian thinkers began to pursue the matter in question as being linked with the context of his concern for Christianness in late North Africa, the correlation still remains in question. In this article, therefore, first I examine how he referred to the Christian code of behavior in his letters. In particular, focusing my attention on epistolary correspondence of Augustine with two seemingly ‘pagans’, I show how he tried to impose the idea of ehe Christian norms of behavior on his correspondence –with Dioscorus (epp. 117 and 118) and with Volusianus (epp. 132, 135, and 137). Then I ask what Augustine understood by spiritual training. For the sake of clarity, I have divided the letters along he thematic line into three groups –the intellectual and therapeutic (ep. 26, 37, 56, 102, 162, 193, 202A, and 2*), the religious and eschatological (ep. 92, 130, 131, 137, and 157), and the exegetical aspect (ep. 28, 137, 149, 199, and 213). In each group I consider them chronologically as far as possible. Finally, I consider the principal feature of spiritual training, thereby coming to the enhancement of spiritual affinities, and mutual relationships of which he made use in speaking about Christian identity.