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Caving Into The Will Of The Masses?: Relics In Augustine's City Of God, Jessica Gadis Jan 2015

Caving Into The Will Of The Masses?: Relics In Augustine's City Of God, Jessica Gadis

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines Augustine of Hippo's support of the cult of relics through the lens of Peter Brown's revision of the two-tiered model which was proposed in his 1981 book The Cult of Saints. More specifically, this thesis attempts to explain the introduction of saint's relics in the final book, book 22, of Augustine's magnum opus The City of God (De Civitate Dei). After providing proof of the theologian's opposition to the cult of relics in his youth, historical, biographical, and textual evidence is used to trace his later change of heart. This change in position is crystallized in …