Pastoral lessons from Augustine’s theological correspondence with women

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Pastoral lessons from Augustine’s theological correspondence with women
 
Creator Smither, Edward
 
Subject History; Practical Theology; Pastoral Ministry Augustine; ministry to women; early church; pastoral ministry
Description Augustine of Hippo (354–430) was a fourth- and fifth-century monk-bishop who left a great imprint on the spiritual leaders of his day by overseeing the monastery at Hippo Regius and also authoring a significant corpus of letters that were pastoral in nature. What is often overlooked in the study of his pastoral ministry and, thus, the focus of this article, is Augustine’s theological correspondence with 15 different women. Through surveying the themes and issues in these letters, I have endeavoured to show that, though a monk, Augustine did care for women in his pastoral ministry and his letters show that he discussed with women many of the issues of his day (pastoral issues, church matters, monastic ideas, theology, and practical theology) that he also discussed with his male correspondents. In short, Augustine believed that these women were much like his mother Monica – capable of grasping biblical and theological issues – and he valued them as an important part of the church. I conclude the article by summarising Augustine’s approaches to and values for ministering to women.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2016-08-19
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Historical Inquiry
Format text/html application/octet-stream text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v72i4.3288
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 72, No 4 (2016); 6 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3288/7713 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3288/7714 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3288/7715 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3288/7580
 
Coverage — Early Church —
Rights Copyright (c) 2016 Edward Smither https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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