Santo Agostinho contra os Maniqueus: considerações sobre conceito de ortodoxia e heresia em Confissões.

Abstract

This work wants to reflect, through the analysis of the work "Confessions" of Saint Augustine, regarding the rivalries and the conflicts experienced by this doctor of the Western Christian Church. Especially the dogmatic refutations and heretical practices of Mani and his followers called Manichaeans. These conflicts marked the constituent process of the cultural practices of the Western Christian Church. The figure and work of Saint Augustine are a privileged locus for the analysis of this process, since the African Church - region where it was bishop - was marked by theological disputes that took place around the presence and performance of Faustus, one of the great Manichean exegetes of the time, as well as of the Christian bishop Ambrose, one of the main opponents of these ideas of faith. Augustine actively inserts himself into this war of words. Being one of the most talented writers of late antiquity, he put his skill at the service of Catholic Christianity. His arguments against Manichean ideas, which he often could not avoid influencing in his writings, opens the way to an analysis of how the instruments of struggle between the divergent Christian groups were forged and how they contributed to the construction of a Christian orthodoxy.