Thomas Clemmons: From Cassiciacum to Thagaste: Augustine’s Developing Christological Structure

At Cassiciacum in 386/387, Augustine composed several dialogues, which in various ways culminate in his discussion on Christ. After some delay in Rome, Augustine returns to North Africa the following year (likely Fall of 388). Upon his return, Augustine completes two works begun while in Rome: De moribus and De Genesi contra Manichaeos. These works are notably different from his early writings, not only for their more extensive biblical citations, but also for how Augustine’s treatment of Christ begins to take a specific structural form. In these works Augustine initiates his discussion of Christ with reference to the Incarnation, then turns subsequently to the church, then to the Trinity in particular (missions, effects, and relations), and returns in the last to Christ. This structure takes on the form of a set piece in the works Augustine composes after his return to North Africa, witnessed also in the later De uera religione.While engaging scholarship on Augustine’s early writings, I focus on the references to Christ in the Dialogues and the works composed and completed in North Africa. In how Augustine discusses Christ, there are strong parallels both lexically and functionally between the works from these two periods. However, in his North African writings Augustine’s structured explication is linked with an expansion in his Christological lexicon. I will treat both the nature of this development, the function of these structural clusters, and what I deem to be a likely source, Ambrose of Milan, from which Augustine draws.