Augustine’s Theologization of Migration: Rethinking the Roman Legal Category of Peregrinatio

Augustine often made theological use of words linked to pilgrimage and migration. For him, the heavenly city was a civitas peregrina: a pilgrim city, migrating around the earth but destined to be liberated from the injustices of the earthly city (civitas terrena). Augustine’s theologization of migration was not, however, meant to reduce it to the status of a symbol alone. Interpreted in light of the Roman legal category of the peregrinus or resident alien, Augustine’s theology of peregrinatio can be read as calling attention to the everyday suffering and economic instability experienced by migrant communities here in this life, even as they harbour hope for a better homeland in the next.