Marie-Ange Rakotoniaina

A historian of early Christianity and a liturgical scholar, Marie-Ange Rakotoniaina is passionate about re-imagining sacred texts and practices in the ancient world. Most recently, her research has devoted itself to the themes of rest and time. Her current book project Of Heart and Time: the Sabbath in the Age of Augustine explores how Augustine’s preaching on the subject of the Sabbath opens new possibilities of religious devotion. Her investigation unveils various metaphors of the Sabbath rest in relation to devotional practices in their liturgical contexts—from fragrance to musical instruments used in psalmist worship or the changing performance of Augustine’s congregations, from memory to desire, from sanctification to obedience. Tuning together theological and historical sensibilities reveals how the practice of rest finds an original place within the private landscape of the heart.

Her teaching seeks to invite students to new avenues of inquiry in theology. Through a diverse range of courses (Faith and Critical Reason; Theology of Augustine; Early Christian Writings; Sacred Texts), she envisions teaching and learning as an invitation to open oneself to the unknown, to re-imagine the world, and to listen to voices once (un)heard between past and present. She is a member of Augustinian Resemblances, a nascent think-tank at the University of Oxford, which strives to bring together historical and theological expertise to revive spiritual imagination in contemporary contexts.

Licence, Master - Université Paris IV-Sorbonne (Histoire des mondes anciens)

Th.M. - Candler School of Theology, Emory University

Ph.D. - Graduate Division of Religion, Emory University

In weaving theology and late ancient history, biblical studies and literary analysis, liturgy and the arts, Marie-Ange Rakotoniaina’s investigation envisions as its task to bridge disciplines and religious traditions, to let past evidence speak to (post-) modern concerns, and to offer new ways of dwelling in time.

Recent publications

• Solicited review of Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022, Journal of Late Antiquity 17:1 (Spring 2024), 276-278.
• “Of Heart, (Re)quies and Time: Redefining the Sabbath Rest in the Sermons of Augustine,” in From Sun-Day to the Day of the Lord. The career of a special day in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. by Uta Heil (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023), 113-142.
• “The Circumcision of the Heart and the Making of Christian Identity in Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos,” Studia Patristica Vol. CXVIII - Papers presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2019. Volume 15: Augustine and his Writings (Leuven: Peeters, 2021), 103-116.
• Solicited review of John David Penniman, Raised on Christian Milk. Food and the Formation of the Soul in Early Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), in Reading Religion. American Academy of Religion, September 2020 (available online at https://readingreligion.org/books/raised-christian-milk).
• “Travels Through and Beyond Time in the Gospel of John”, Temporalités. Revue de Sciences Sociales et Humaines. Temporalités du sacré et rythmes du religieux 30 | 2019 (available at http://journals.openedition.org/temporalites/6927).
• « Penser le temps et sa négation dans les paraboles de l’évangile de Marc », in Le Temps. Collections Cultures antiques, ed. by C. Laizé-Gratias (Paris : Ellipses, 2017).