The phrase tempora christiana in Augustine has been studied from various points of view. This article illuminates the way in which it refers to the care of divine providence for individuals and society in the period when true worship is rendered to God through the Christian religion. Furthermore, we find Augustine proposing, using the idea of kairós, i.e. a new opportunity to be embraced, to create a new cycle of the human story, to which everyone will contribute.

The patristic period is of particular interest for the theme of “masculine” and “feminine” given the interconnection between the patristic exegesis of the two stories of creation and the religious and social culture of the time. Late antiquity parameters of masculine and feminine, however although they are placed beyond the modern questions, cannot be considered completely extraneous from modernity for that path of history that connects human epochs beyond their own determined period. In this note we attempt to summarize the (...) patristic approaches with an overall view, having both, a not too dispersive picture, and also to obtain some elements for further reflections, keeping in mind what Freud already observed «that the concepts “masculine” and “feminine”, whose content appears so devoid of ambiguity to common opinion, belong to the most confused concepts in science». (shrink)

In Augustinian reflection, the main problem of the imago Dei is the renewal of its image through being healed from lust, so as to regain the ordo amoris destroyed by sin. Current research investigates what the gratia Christi and charity contribute to the renewal of the image of God, at the level of a marriage bond that human race was given as part of the act of creation. This emerges as a primary element, both in the original state of man (...) and in his recovery through the gratia Christi. (shrink)