Vestnik Pravoslavnogo Svâto-Tihonovskogo Gumanitarnogo Universiteta: Seriâ III. Filologiâ (Dec 2020)
St. Augustine’s treatise ‘’On the spirit and the letter’’: its historical background and principal set of ideas
Abstract
This article is devoted to the treatise On the Spirit and the Letter, one of the earliest anti-Pelagian works of St. Augustine. It describes the historical and literary context of the initial stage of the Pelagian controversy, which had a decisive infl uence on the topic and content of this treatise. The doctrine of primordial sin and damage to human nature caused by Adam’s fall, which St. Augustine introduced and substantiated in this work, remained fundamental for the subsequent development of his treatment of salvation. The general description of the treatise is accompanied by a review of assessments that were given to its content in the Russian theological literature. The article also gives a structural and thematic analysis of the treatise. It shows a frequent use by St. Augustine of polemic exegesis; its material is predominantly the Epistles of St. Paul. The article examines St. Augustine’s interpretation of the main topics of Christian soteriology raised with regard to the main question about the meaning of law and grace for justifi cation and salvation.The article concludes that the unique role of the treatise On the Spirit and the Letter in St. Augustine’s Corpus is due to the fact that the text expresses his position to the issue of grace which in subsequent Pelagian controversies was condemned in the West as “semi-Pelagianism” and came to be known in the East as the doctrine of synergy.
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