Los términos os- pectus- cor en Confesiones, VI

Abstract

This research is divided into five parts. In the first part, the author analyzes Augustine´s use of body images to refer to different mental states, following a classical tradition. From the set of images, she chooses the three that give name to these pages. Next, she justifies the narrowness of her research, especially in book VI and the beginnings of book VII; that is to say, in the passages where Augustine describes the beginnings of his conversion crisis. In the second part, the meanings of the term os in that part of the work are analyzed; in the third and fourth, the same analysis is carried out for the terms pectus and cor respectively. All analyses are performed with examples from the texts and references to parallel places. In the last part, and as a conclusion, the number of repetitions of said terms is used to show the growing level of internalization or deepening of the crisis, redefined by Augustine in the above mentioned passages, suggests that they constitute a triad parallel to the traditional corpus-anima-spiritus and points out, at the same time, its validity even in the rhetoric realm.