What Might Agamben Learn from Augustine

Giorgio Agamben’s references to a ‘coming community’ keep readers hunting for its characteristics, specifically for prescriptions that would signal how its political culture might be developed and maintained. His ambivalence toward Augustine prevents him, as well as readers, from discovering contributions the prelate’s preferences for compassionate collectives – which especially mark his polemical treatises, correspondence, and sermons – might make to giving a shape to the coming community that comports with many of Agamben’s other politically significant remarks.