Zusammenfassung / Abstract
„genium Carthaginis – Augustin as preacher in Carthage“ – The paper analyses the strategies by which the rhetor and preacher Augustine, bishop of Hippo, tries to expose and reinforce the differences and specific features of the religious identity of Carthage. Augustine’s sermons are usually cited to document the iconoclasm in North Africa or the history of the struggle between late antique Christians with paganism in general; however, the interest of this paper is in the arguments that the preacher Augustine deploys in debate and by these means comments upon and tries to direct the situation in Carthage and the mood of the community in each case. Augustine obviously tries to provide the Carthaginian Christians with an identity and a cultural framework moulded both in contrast to Carthage’s own (pagan) tradition and history and in contrast to Rome, the Christian capital.