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Document Details : Title: Augustine's Anti-Manichaean Dilemma Subtitle: The Anthropomorphic Vision of God Author(s): MOISEEVA, Evgenïa Journal: Augustiniana Volume: 73 Issue: 2 Date: 2023 Pages: 247-268 DOI: 10.2143/AUG.73.2.3292750 Abstract : The present essay offers an analysis of Augustine’s interpretation of anthropomorphism in the Bible in the context of anti-Manichaean polemics. Corporeal anthropomorphism was an important issue for Augustine during his Manichaean years and is tackled in his early anti-Manichaean works such as Gn. adu. Man. Later on, the need to respond to the Manichaean criticism of the Old Testament in Adimantus’s Disputationes stimulated his interest to the question of God’s emotions. While in his treatment of corporeal anthropomorphism Augustine followed an existing Christian tradition by invoking the allegorical interpretation and pedagogical function of anthropomorphic references, his analysis of God’s jealousy, anger, and regret led him to the theory of the insufficiency of the human language for expressing the divine, which had a profound effect on Augustine’s later works such as doctr. chr. Even though Augustine did not introduce any exclusively Manichaean concepts into Christian theology, the development of his thought was influenced by both his Manichaean background and his polemics with the Manichaeans, and he continued to hold onto some concepts he learned as a Manichaean hearer, including not only the aversion to anthropomorphism but also the notion of God’s impassibility. |
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