Following the Movement of Augustine’s Thought

There is a growing consensus in Augustinian studies that Augustine’s two cities cannot be mapped neatly onto the distinction between Church and State. How, then, can he help illumine Church-State questions? In this essay, I examine how Henri de Lubac and Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) retrieve and build upon Augustine’s theological-political thought to develop a contemporary Augustinan approach to Church-State relations. I begin by discussing how their attention to the movement of Augustine’s thought leads them to recognize the importance of mysterium in his vision and develop a Eucharistic ecclesiology focused on the Church as corpus mysticum. I then show how this ecclesiology helps them to critique ways of thinking about Church-State relations that operate solely within a political-juridical paradigm. Both thinkers, I argue, root their vision of spiritual authority in this Augustinian ecclesiology, and maintain that it must be understood in different terms than political authority. I conclude that this vision of spiritual authority illumines the Church’s perennial mission of elevating political life and its present mission of forming citizens capable of acting as leaven in their political communities.