Augustine’s Conception of Divine Incorporeality in Homiletic and Polemical Contexts
This article analyzes Augustine’s thinking on God’s incorporeality, a doctrine he mainly developed in reaction against Manichaean and Arian reflections in this regard. Augustine’s decision to enter the Catholic Church was strongly influenced by his understanding of divine incorporeality, a concept to which he was introduced in the mid-380s in Milan. This means that God is not subject to time and space in any way. This metaphysical commitment enabled Augustine to answer several of his objections to Christianity. Shortly after his baptism, Augustine applied this understanding of the divine to his critiques of the Manichaeans. In this article we see how, decades later, this doctrinal commitment was developed and expressed in his homiletic corpus and in his polemics against the Arians. Knotts looks at sources from the 390s, and then homilies mostly from the second decade of the 400s. This enables us to see how the theme of incorporeality is further developed and deployed in homiletic and polemical contexts. Thus, two closely related themes emerge. First, Augustine holds that we must not think of the generation of the Son according to an earthly logic; we must not seek temporal duration in eternity. Second, we must possess the intellectual humility to realise that our earthly categories are not sufficient for thinking about God. Augustine opts to confess his ignorance of what it means for the Son to be eternal, and rather grounds his theology in scripture. These are two major points that arise in Augustine’s critique of the Arians. We shall also see how the Gospel of John forms a locus theologicus for Augustine. The development of divine incorporeality figures in Augustine’s homilies and polemics as a way to neutralise his opponents and provide further resources for his audience.
