Augustine's Tragic Vision
This essay explores Augustine’s capacity to accommodate a tragic vision of human existence within his interpretation of the Christian revelation. Broadly speaking, for Augustine, sacred history combines the tragic necessity of self-inflicted human sinfulness with the benevolent necessity of the econ...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Rabbi Myer and Dorothy Kripke Center for the Study of Religion and Society at Creighton University
2018
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| In: |
Journal of religion & society. Supplement
Year: 2018, Volume: 15, Pages: 157-169 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | This essay explores Augustine’s capacity to accommodate a tragic vision of human existence within his interpretation of the Christian revelation. Broadly speaking, for Augustine, sacred history combines the tragic necessity of self-inflicted human sinfulness with the benevolent necessity of the economy of divine grace. Augustine to some degree admired the pagan tragedians for compelling the attention and emotion of their audiences in confronting the ineluctability of evil (and other tragic themes), but their mimesis ultimately failed since it could not touch the reality conveyed in divine revelation. Two exegetical test cases, the story of Jephthah’s sacrifice of his daughter (Judges 11) and King Saul’s tragic heroics in 1 Samuel, exemplify how Augustine greatly profited from interpreting Scripture through a tragical lens. A whole other dimension of Augustine’s tragic vision appears in his attempt – inspired from his own early experience of staged tragedies in Carthage – to reenter ancient philosophical debates on tragedy and mimesis, and to revamp in Christian terms the tragic emotions, especially tragic pity as Christian mercy. |
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| ISSN: | 1941-8450 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religion & society. Supplement
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