Volume 48, Issue 1/2, 2017
Reconsiderations Conference V
Catherine Conybeare
Pages 105-117
Vt tecum tamquam mecum audeam conloqui
The Politics of Return
This paper reads the surviving letters written by Augustine during the period between his return to North Africa in 388 and his elevation to the bishopric of Hippo in 395. In doing so, it explores Augustine’s complicated relationship with his native land and his new Christian role there, and with the career and associates that he has left behind; and it reveals some of the pressures inherent in the notion of “coming home.”