Joseph Ratzinger's Interpretation of Augustine of Hippo

A critical study of Volk und Haus Gottes in Augustins Lehre von der Kirche (1954)

Abstract

The work Volk und Haus Gottes in Augustins Lehre von der Kirche was written by Joseph Ratzinger, under the direction of Professor Gottlieb Söhngen, during the academic year 1950-1951 at the Faculty of Catholic Theology of the University of Munich, as a result of his taking part in an academic theological competition. Acknowledged as a doctoral dissertation (1951), then published as a book (1954), it later became part of the inaugural volume of Joseph Ratzinger Gesammelte Schriften (2011), also containing other essays on patristic topics. The article examines the historical and systematic-theological research carried out by Ratzinger, which is supposed to clarify the specificity of Augustine of Hippo’s ecclesiology. It shows the most relevant aspects of his investigation, identifying two main methodological trajectories, namely “historicization” and “actualization”, which are fundamental to Ratzinger’s hermeneutics of both Augustine and the history of Christian theological thought.