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Document Details : Title: Born to Die Subtitle: Adam and Eve's Punishments in Augustine's Sermones ad populum Author(s): NISULA, Timo Journal: Augustiniana Volume: 67 Issue: 3-4 Date: 2017 Pages: 199-228 DOI: 10.2143/AUG.67.3.3275098 Abstract : Adam and Eve play a remarkable role in Augustine’s theology of original sin and the fall. This paper studies the ways in which Augustine preaches to his congregation in sermones ad populum about primi homines and the punishments they received for their rebellion against the divine commandment in the Garden of Eden. I investigate how Augustine describes the fallen humankind, his audience included, as an interconnected unity of Adam and Eve’s family. This unity serves as a basis for the preacher to join his listeners to suffer the punishments of their ancestors in Eden. I suggest that in the sermons both the unity of humankind and the divine punishments derived from the fall are conceived in rather bodily and biological terms. As in his written works, Augustine takes physical death to represent the main form of poena for Adam and Eve’s fall. I will present a series of images and topoi that Augustine uses in preaching about this punishment for his congregation. Some of these images seem to be sermon specific, that is, appearing only in his spoken sermons. |
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