This famous son of St. Monica was born in Africa and spent many years of his life in wicked living and in false beliefs. Though he was one of the most intelligent men who ever lived and though he had been brought up a Christian, his sins of impurity and his pride darkened his mind so much, that he could not see or understand the Divine Truth anymore. Through the prayers of his holy mother and the marvelous preaching of St. Ambrose, Augustine finally became convinced that Christianity was the one true religion. Yet he did not become a Christian then, because he thought he could never live a pure life. One day, however, he heard about two men who had suddenly been converted on reading the life of St. Antony, and he felt terrible ashamed of himself. "What are we doing?" he cried to his friend Alipius. "Unlearned people are taking Heaven by force, while we, with all our knowledge, are so cowardly that we keep rolling around in the mud of our sins!"Full of bitter sorrow, Augustine flung himself out into the garden and cried out to God, "How long more, O Lord? Why does not this hour put an end to my sins?" Just then he heard a child singing, "Take up and read!" Thinking that God intended him to hear those words, he picked up the book of the Letters of St. Paul, and read the first passage his gaze fell on. It was just what Augustine needed, for in it, St. Paul says to put away all impurity and to live in imitation of Jesus. That did it! From then on, Augustine began a new life.
He was baptized, became a priest, a bishop, a famous Catholic writer, Founder of religious priests, and one of the greatest saints that ever lived. He became very devout and charitable, too. On the wall of his room he had the following sentence written in large letters: "Here we do not speak evil of anyone." St. Augustine overcame strong heresies, practiced great poverty and supported the poor, preached very often and prayed with great fervor right up until his death. "Too late have I loved You!" he once cried to God, but with his holy life he certainly made up for the sins he committed before his conversion. His feast day is August 28th.
Augustine", "Saint Augustine", and "Augustinus" redirect here. For other uses, see Augustine (disambiguation), Saint Augustine (disambiguation), and Augustinus (disambiguation).
Augustine of Hippo (/ɔːˈɡʌstɨn/[1][2] or /ˈɔːɡəstɪn/;[2] Latin: Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis;[3] 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine or Saint Austin,[4] was an early Christian theologian and philosopher[5] whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius (present-day Annaba, Algeria) located in the Roman province of Africa. He is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in the Western Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Era. Among his most important works are City of God and Confessions.
According to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith."[6] In his early years, he was heavily influenced by Manichaeism and afterward by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus.[7] After his baptism and conversion to Christianity in 387, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and perspectives.[8] Believing that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he helped formulate the doctrine of original sin and made seminal contributions to the development of just war theory.
When the Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Catholic Church as a spiritual City of God (in a book of the same name), distinct from the material Earthly City.[9] His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. The segment of the Church that adhered to the concept of the Trinity as defined by the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople.[10] closely identified with Augustine's City of God.
In the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, he is a saint, a pre-eminent Doctor of the Church, and the patron of the Augustinians. His memorial is celebrated on 28 August, the day of his death. He is the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, the alleviation of sore eyes, and a number of cities and dioceses.[11] Many Protestants, especially Calvinists, consider him to be one of the theological fathers of the Protestant Reformation due to his teachings on salvation and divine grace.
In the East, many of his teachings are not accepted. The most important doctrinal controversy surrounding his name is the filioque.[12] Other possibly unacceptable doctrines include his views on original sin, the doctrine of grace, and predestination.[13] Nonetheless, though considered to be mistaken on some points, he is still considered a saint, and his feast day is celebrated on 15 June.[14] He carries the additional title of Blessed as opposed to Saint among the Orthodox Church, due to his teachings controversial with the doctrine.[15]
Contents
1 Life
1.1 Childhood and education
1.2 Teaching rhetoric
1.3 Christian conversion and priesthood
1.4 Death and veneration
1.4.1 Relics
2 Thought
2.1 Christian anthropology
2.2 Astrology
2.3 Creation
2.4 Ecclesiology
2.5 Eschatology
2.6 Epistemological views
2.7 Just war
2.8 Mariology
2.9 Natural knowledge and biblical interpretation
2.10 Original sin
2.11 Free will
2.12 Sacramental theology
2.13 Statements on Jews
2.14 Views on sexuality
3 Teaching philosophy
4 Works
5 Influence
6 In popular culture
7 See also
8 References
9 Bibliography
10 Further reading
11 External links
Life
Childhood and education
Augustine was born in 354 in the municipium of Thagaste (now Souk Ahras, Algeria) in Roman Africa.[16][17] His mother, Monica, was a devout Christian; his father Patricius was a Pagan who converted to Christianity on his deathbed.[18] Scholars believe that Augustine's ancestors included Berbers, Latins, and Phoenicians.[19] He considered himself to be Punic.[20] Augustine's family name, Aurelius, suggests that his father's ancestors were freedmen of the gens Aurelia given full Roman citizenship by the Edict of Caracalla in 212. Augustine's family had been Roman, from a legal standpoint, for at least a century when he was born.[21] It is assumed that his mother, Monica, was of Berber origin, on the basis of her name,[19][22] but as his family were honestiores, an upper class of citizens known as honorable men, Augustine's first language is likely to have been Latin.[19] At the age of 11, he was sent to school at Madaurus (now M'Daourouch), a small Numidian city about 19 miles south of Thagaste. There he became familiar with Latin literature, as well as pagan beliefs and practices.[23] His first insight into the nature of sin occurred when he and a number of friends stole fruit they did not want from a neighborhood garden. While at home in 369 and 370, he read Cicero's dialogue Hortensius (now lost), which he described as leaving a lasting impression and sparking his interest in philosophy.[24]
At the age of 17, through the generosity of his fellow citizen Romanianus,[24] Augustine went to Carthage to continue his education in rhetoric. Although raised as a Christian, Augustine left the church to follow the Manichaean religion, much to his mother's despair.[25] As a youth Augustine lived a hedonistic lifestyle for a time, associating with young men who boasted of their bisexual exploits. They urged inexperienced boys like Augustine to seek or make up stories about sexual experiences to gain their acceptance.[26] It was during this period that he uttered his famous prayer, "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet."[27]
At about the age of 19, Augustine began an affair with a young woman in Carthage. Possibly because his mother wanted him to marry a person of his class, the woman remained his lover[28] for over thirteen years and gave birth to his son Adeodatus,[29] who was viewed as extremely intelligent by his contemporaries, whose name means "gift of God".[30] In 385, Augustine abandoned his lover in order to prepare himself to marry an heiress.[31]
Teaching rhetoric
Augustine taught grammar at Thagaste during 373 and 374. The following year he moved to Carthage to conduct a school of rhetoric and would remain there for the next nine years.[24] Disturbed by unruly students in Carthage, he moved to establish a school in Rome, where he believed the best and brightest rhetoricians practiced, in 383. However, Augustine was disappointed with Roman school who greeted him with apathy. His students fled instead of paying their fees. Manichaean friends introduced him to the prefect of the City of Rome, Symmachus, who had been asked by the imperial court at Milan[32]to provide a rhetoric professor.
Augustine won the job and headed north to take his position in late 384. Thirty years old, he had won the most visible academic position in the Latin world at a time when such posts gave ready access to political careers. Although Augustine showed some fervor for Manichaeism, he was never an initiate or "elect", but an "auditor", the lowest level in the sect's hierarchy.[32]
While still at Carthage, he began to move away from Manichaeism, partially because of a disappointing meeting with the Manichaean Bishop, Faustus of Mileve, a key exponent of Manichaean theology.[32] In Rome, he reportedly turned away from Manichaeanism, embracing the scepticism of the New Academy movement. Because he was well traveled within the Roman Empire, Augustine had great rhetorical prowess and was very knowledgeable of the philosophies behind many faiths.[33] At Milan, his mother's religiosity, Augustine's own studies in Neoplatonism, and his friend Simplicianus all urged him towards Christianity.[24] At first Augustine was not very influenced by Christianity and its ideologies, but after coming in contact with St. Ambrose of Milan, Augustine reevaluated himself and was forever changed.
Like Augustine, Ambrose was a master of rhetoric, but older and more experienced.[34] Saint Augustine of Hippo was strongly influenced by Ambrose of Milan even more than his own mother and others he looked up to. Augustine arrived in Milan and was immediately taken under the wing by St Ambrose. Within St. Augustine’s work, Confessions, Augustine states “That man of God received me as a father would, and welcomed my coming as a good bishop should.”.[35] Soon their relationship grew very strong. And I began to love him, of course, not at the first as a teacher of the truth, for I had entirely despaired of finding that in thy Church—but as a friendly man”.[35] Augustine was simply visiting Ambrose so that he would be able to confirm or deny the legend that Ambrose was one of the greatest speakers and Rhetoricians in the world. More interested in his speaking skills than the topic of speech, Augustine quickly discovered that Ambrose was a spectacular orator. Eventually, Augustine says that through the unconscious, he was lead into the faith of Christianity.[36]
Augustine's mother had followed him to Milan and arranged a marriage for which he abandoned his concubine. Although Augustine accepted this marriage, Augustine may have been deeply hurt by ending the relationship with the concubine. There is evidence that Augustine may have considered this former relationship to be equivalent to marriage.[37] In his Confessions, he admitted that the experience eventually produced a decreased sensitivity to pain. He had to wait two years until his fiancée came of age, and he soon took another concubine. Augustine eventually broke off his engagement to his eleven-year-old fiancée, but never renewed his relationship with either of his concubines.
Alypius of Thagaste steered Augustine away from marriage, saying that they could not live a life together in the love of wisdom if he married. Augustine looked back years later on the life at Cassiciacum, a villa outside of Milan where he gathered with his followers, and described it as Christianae vitae otium – the Christian life of leisure.[38] Augustine had been awarded a job of professor of rhetoric in Milan at the time he was living at Cassiciacum around 383.
Christian conversion and priesthood
In the summer of 386, after having heard and been inspired and moved by the story of Placianus's and his friends' first reading of the life of Saint Anthony of the Desert, Augustine converted to Christianity. As Augustine later told it, his conversion was prompted by a childlike voice he heard telling him to "take up and read" (Latin: tolle, lege), which he took as a divine command to open the Bible and read the first thing he saw. Augustine read from Paul's Epistle to the Romans – the so-called "Transformation of Believers" section, consisting of chapters 12 through 15 – wherein Paul outlines how the Gospel transforms believers, and the believers' resulting behaviour. The specific part to which Augustine opened his Bible was Romans chapter 13, verses 13 and 14, to wit:
Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.[39]
He later wrote an account of his conversion – his very transformation, as Paul described – in his Confessions (Latin: Confessiones), which has since become a classic of Christian theology.
Ambrose baptized Augustine, along with his son Adeodatus, on Easter Vigil in 387 in Milan. A year later, in 388, Augustine completed his apology On the Holiness of the Catholic Church.[32] That year, also, Adeodatus and Augustine returned to Africa,[24] Augustine's home continent. Augustine's mother Monica died at Ostia, Italy, as they prepared to embark for Africa.[40] Upon their arrival, they began a life of aristocratic leisure at Augustine's family's property.[41][42] Soon after, Adeodatus, too, passed away.[43] Augustine then sold his patrimony and gave the money to the poor. The only thing he kept was the family house, which he converted into a monastic foundation for himself and a group of friends.[24]
In 391 Augustine was ordained a priest in Hippo Regius (now Annaba), in Algeria. He became a famous preacher (more than 350 preserved sermons are believed to be authentic), and was noted for combating the Manichaean religion, to which he had formerly adhered.[32]
In 395 he was made coadjutor Bishop of Hippo, and became full Bishop shortly thereafter,[44] hence the name "Augustine of Hippo"; and he gave his property to the church of Thagaste.[45] He remained in that position until his death in 430. He wrote his autobiographical Confessions in 397-398. His work The City of God was written to console his fellow Christians shortly after the Visigoths had sacked Rome in 410.
Augustine worked tirelessly in trying to convince the people of Hippo to convert to Christianity. Though he had left his monastery, he continued to lead a monastic life in the episcopal residence. He left a regula for his monastery that led to his designation as the "patron saint of regular clergy."[46]
Much of Augustine's later life was recorded by his friend Possidius, bishop of Calama (present-day Guelma, Algeria), in his Sancti Augustini Vita. Possidius admired Augustine as a man of powerful intellect and a stirring orator who took every opportunity to defend Christianity against its detractors. Possidius also described Augustine's personal traits in detail, drawing a portrait of a man who ate sparingly, worked tirelessly, despised gossip, shunned the temptations of the flesh, and exercised prudence in the financial stewardship of his see.[47]
Death and veneration
Shortly before Augustine's death the Vandals, a Germanic tribe that had converted to Arianism, invaded Roman Africa. The Vandals besieged Hippo in the spring of 430, when Augustine entered his final illness. According to Possidius, one of the few miracles attributed to Augustine, the healing of an ill man, took place during the siege.[48] According to Possidius, Augustine spent his final days in prayer and repentance, requesting that the penitential Psalms of David be hung on his walls so that he could read them. He directed that the library of the church in Hippo and all the books therein should be carefully preserved. He died on 28 August 430.[49] Shortly after his death, the Vandals lifted the siege of Hippo, but they returned not long thereafter and burned the city. They destroyed all of it but Augustine's cathedral and library, which they left untouched.[50]
Augustine was canonized by popular acclaim, and later recognized as a Doctor of the Church in 1298 by Pope Boniface VIII.[51] His feast day is 28 August, the day on which he died. He is considered the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, sore eyes, and a number of cities and dioceses.[11]
Relics
According to Bede's True Martyrology, Augustine's body was later translated or moved to Cagliari, Sardinia, by the Catholic bishops expelled from North Africa by Huneric. Around 720, his remains were translated again by Peter, bishop of Pavia and uncle of the Lombard king Liutprand, to the church of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro in Pavia, in order to save them from frequent coastal raids by Muslims. In January 1327, Pope John XXII issued the papal bull Veneranda Santorum Patrum, in which he appointed the Augustinians guardians of the tomb of Augustine (called Arca), which was remade in 1362 and elaborately carved with bas-reliefs of scenes from Augustine's life.
In October 1695, some workmen in the Church of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro in Pavia discovered a marble box containing some human bones (including part of a skull). A dispute arose between the Augustinian hermits (Order of Saint Augustine) and the regular canons (Canons Regular of Saint Augustine) as to whether these were the bones of St. Augustine. The hermits did not believe so; the canons affirmed that they were. Eventually Pope Benedict XIII (1724–1730) directed the Bishop of Pavia, Monsignor Pertusati, to make a determination. The bishop declared that, in his opinion, the bones were those of Saint Augustine.[52]
The Augustinians were expelled from Pavia in 1700, taking refuge in Milan with the relics of Augustine, and the disassembled Arca, which were removed to the cathedral there. San Pietro fell into disrepair, but was finally rebuilt in the 1870s, under the urging of Agostino Gaetano Riboldi, and reconsecrated in 1896 when the relics of Augustine and the shrine were once again reinstalled.[53][54]
Thought
Christian anthropology
Augustine was one of the first Christian ancient Latin authors with a very clear vision of theological anthropology.[55] He saw the human being as a perfect unity of two substances: soul and body. In his late treatise On Care to Be Had for the Dead, section 5 (420 AD) he exhorted to respect the body on the grounds that it belonged to the very nature of the human person.[56] Augustine's favourite figure to describe body-soul unity is marriage: caro tua, coniunx tua — your body is your wife.[57][58][59] Initially, the two elements were in perfect harmony. After the fall of humanity they are now experiencing dramatic combat between one another. They are two categorically different things. The body is a three-dimensional object composed of the four elements, whereas the soul has no spatial dimensions.[60] Soul is a kind of substance, participating in reason, fit for ruling the body.[61] Augustine was not preoccupied, as Plato and Descartes were, with going too much into details in efforts to explain the metaphysics of the soul-body union. It sufficed for him to admit that they are metaphysically distinct: to be a human is to be a composite of soul and body, and the soul is superior to the body. The latter statement is grounded in his hierarchical classification of things into those that merely exist, those that exist and live, and those that exist, live, and have intelligence or reason.[62][63]
Like other Church Fathers such as Athenagoras,[64] St. Augustine "vigorously condemned the practice of induced abortion" as a crime, in any stage of pregnancy,[65] although he accepted the distinction between "formed" and "unformed" fetuses mentioned in the Septuagint translation of Exodus 21:22–23, a text that, he observed, did not classify as murder the abortion of an "unformed" fetus, since it could not be said with certainty that it had already received a soul (see, e.g., De Origine Animae 4.4).[66]
Astrology
Augustine's contemporaries often believed astrology to be an exact and genuine science. Its practitioners were regarded as true men of learning and called mathemathici. Astrology played a prominent part in Manichaean doctrine, and Augustine himself was attracted by their books in his youth, being particularly fascinated by those who claimed to foretell the future. Later, as a bishop, he used to warn that one should avoid astrologers who combine science and horoscopes. (Augustine's term "mathematici", meaning "astrologers", is sometimes mistranslated as "mathematicians".) According to Augustine, they were not genuine students of Hipparchus or Eratosthenes but "common swindlers".[67][68][69][70]
Creation
See also: Allegorical interpretations of Genesis
In City of God, Augustine rejected both the immortality of the human race proposed by pagans, and contemporary ideas of ages (such as those of certain Greeks and Egyptians) that differed from the Church's sacred writings.[71] In The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, Augustine took the view that everything in the universe was created simultaneously by God, and not in seven calendar days like a literal account of Genesis would require. He argued that the six-day structure of creation presented in the book of Genesis represents a logical framework, rather than the passage of time in a physical way — it would bear a spiritual, rather than physical, meaning, which is no less literal. One reason for this interpretation is the passage in Sirach 18:1, creavit omni simul ("He created all things at once"), which Augustine took as proof that the days of Genesis 1 had to be taken non-literally.[72] Augustine also does not envision original sin as causing structural changes in the universe, and even suggests that the bodies of Adam and Eve were already created mortal before the Fall.[73] Apart from his specific views, Augustine recognizes that the interpretation of the creation story is difficult, and remarks that we should be willing to change our mind about it as new information comes up.[74
