Reflections on Augustine’s Evaluation of the Body in his later Comments on Genesis

Augustine’s anthropology is closely connected with his Christology and vice versa. In this contribution I argue that, despite his reputation for a dualistic or even negative evaluation of the human body, Augustine also in his later works, considered the human body as an opportunity for salvation. With help of three works on the book Genesis, which are distinctive in their rhetorical scopes, I discuss observations of a certain degree of constancy in a positive evaluation of the human body. These observations will be assessed in the framework of Augustine’s Christology.