Revelation 20:12–15: Augustine on the “book of life,” and the conflicting picture of predestination in De civitate dei 20,14–15
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Alexandra Pârvan
Abstract:
The article examines how Augustine’s interpretation of the “book of life” (liber vitae uniuscuiusque) in Rev 20:12 and the “book of life” (liber vitae) in Rev 20:15 in De civitate dei 20,14–15 seems to put him at variance with his own theory of predestination. The contradictions that his two “books of life” create are explored in connection with his use of language, his previous and incompatible interpretations of liber vitae in the course of 27 years (so far unaddressed in scholarship), tensions internal to Revelation, conflicts intrinsic to Augustine’s theory of predestination, and other interpretations of liber/libri vitae in the patristic literature. Showing that Augustine could not offer a commentary consistent both with Rev 20:12–15 and his own views on judgement and predestination contributes something to the virtually unexplored interplay between Augustine’s theory of predestination, De civitate dei and Revelation.
Acknowledgements: I wish to express a special thank you to Professor Karla Pollmann, whose thoughtful appreciation of this paper has rescued the intellectual joy and purpose I put in it at a time when they were becoming extinct. I am also fortunate and thankful for having been provided with some materials difficult to access by my esteemed colleagues Professor Christof Müller, Dr. Maria Cristina Pîrvu, Professor Friederike Nüssel, and especially Professor Bruce McCormack, all of whom have thus acted as great friends to me and to this article.
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
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- The Doctrine of Original Sin Amongst Augustine’s African Contemporaries: The Case of Evodius of Uzalis’ De fide contra Manichaeos
- Revelation 20:12–15: Augustine on the “book of life,” and the conflicting picture of predestination in De civitate dei 20,14–15
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- The Greek Version(s) of Augustine’s De gestis Pelagii
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- Rezensionen
- Matthew W. Bates: The Birth of Trinity. Jesus, God, and Spirit in New Testament and Early Christian Interpretations of the Old Testament, Oxford (Oxford University Press) 2015, XII + 234 S., ISBN 978-0-19-872956-3, £ 55,–.
- Young Richard Kim: Epiphanius of Cyprus. Imagining an Orthodox World, Ann Arbor (University of Michigan Press) 2015, XVI + 278 pp., ISBN 978-0-472-11954-7, $ 85,–.
- David Brakke and Andrew Crislip, eds.: Selected Discourses of Shenoute the Great: Community, Theology, and Social Conflict in Late Antique Egypt, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) 2015, X + 326 pp., ISBN 978-1-107-02256-0, £ 64,99.
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- Jonathan L. Zecher: The Role of Death in the Ladder of Divine Ascent and the Greek Ascetic Tradition, Oxford Early Christian Studies, Oxford (Oxford University Press) 2015, XX + 252 S., ISBN 978-0-19-872494-0, £ 65,–.
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