ABSTRACT
Introduction The responsibility accompanying the social position that Augustine bore as a man of letters, pedagogue and bishop resounds in his words as preacher, words through which he allowed a variety of intellectual and spiritual sources to speak to the contemporary life of late classical North Africa (for a general introduction in Augustine’s life and thinking, see Lancel 1999; Brown 2000; van der Meer 1961). By virtue of these tasks and responsibilities, both corporeal and spiritual disability were regularly the subject of his thinking and speaking (Brown 1988; Rassinier 1991). Although Augustine’s speaking on this subject is inextricably bound up with his longing for spiritual fulfilment through philosophy and religion, it is striking that, in spite of the high degree of abstraction of his subjects, the comforting and encouraging words of a close friend, mother and shepherd continually resonate through his preaching. He preaches for example on the incarnation using the following imagery:
So what did our mother Wisdom do? She became weak in the flesh, in order to gather chicks together, in order to lay eggs and hatch them. But the weakness of God is stronger than men (1 Cor. 1: 25).
