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Clerical Leadership In Late Antiquity: Augustine On Bishops’ Polemical And Pastoral Burdens, Peter Iver Kaufman

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Augustine returned from Italy to North Africa in 388, apparently elated to have found his calling. The cities he had known, Thagaste and Carthage, and would soon come to know, Hippo Regius, were relatively prosperous, despite taxes collected for the central government which had been making increasing demands since the time of Emperor Constantine. The funds available for municipal improvements were depleted (gravement amputés), Claude Lepelley calculated, siting the African cities in “a history of inexorable decline” from the 380s into the 430s. In the coastal city of Hippo, however, Augustine, as bishop was busy from the late 390s, exchanging …