| This dissertation is a systematization of Augustine's reflections on worship as they intersect with his more general aesthetic thought. It traces the music in his song to God and investigates the rhythm of his aesthetics to understand how that rhythm informed and transformed his understanding and love of God.;I begin with Augustine's most directly aesthetic writings. Confessiones includes a precis of De pulchro et apto which tells us more about Augustine's way of thinking than his thought itself. De ordine is the most important of Augustine's four early dialogs for his thought about beauty, and it provides the context for De musica , his most significant work in aesthetic theory. During the first year of his episcopate, Augustine brought his explicitly philosophical work to a close in De doctrina Christiana before turning to more pressing pastoral issues.;Those issues included leading the Christian faithful into deeper commitment, and calling outsiders and the catechumens to conversion. De catechizandis rudibus synthesized Augustine's care for beauty and his desire for evangelism, and through its rhetoric, I provide a way of exploring four of the primary stages of Christian initiation at Hippo: evangelism, committing to the church, preparation for baptism, and the journey in resurrection life.;The promise of baptism was sharing in the Eucharist. I use Augustine's aesthetic thought to situate many of the references he made throughout his life to the Eucharist in sermons, letters, and commentary, as well as his instructions to new Christians, which describe parts of the Eucharist which were not appropriate to discuss in more public forums. This exploration establishes that Augustine's theology of the Eucharist (and indeed of sacramentality in general) was much more grounded in the interaction of the beauty of God with structures of signification than has often been acknowledged.;Finally, I briefly gather this descriptive effort together, invert it thematically, and draw together themes throughout Augustine's thought: the ambiguity of desire and relationship, the proportionality of love, and the play of memory and time. |
