Who is St. Augustine?
A theologian and philosopher of mixed Roman and Berber ancestry, St. Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430) served as the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. He is considered one of the most significant Church Fathers of the Latin Church during the Patristic Era, and his writings had a significant impact on the evolution of Western philosophy and Western Christianity. Among his numerous significant writings are Confessions, On Christian Doctrine, and The City of God.
Jerome of Stridon, a contemporary of St. Augustine, said that he “established anew the ancient Faith”. He was initially attracted to the Manichaean religion and then to Neoplatonism, a Hellenistic philosophy. Following his baptism and commitment to Christianity in 386, Augustine created his own philosophy and theology that took into account a range of approaches and viewpoints. He made important contributions to the formation of just war theory and helped construct the theology of original sin since he believed that human freedom depended on the grace of Christ. St. Augustine envisioned the Church as a spiritual City of God, separate from the tangible Earthly City, when the Western Roman Empire started to fall apart.
Augustine’s On the Trinity was strongly associated with the branch of the Church that upheld the definition of the Trinity as established by the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople.
The Anglican Communion, the Lutheran churches, the Catholic Church, and the Eastern Orthodox Church all acknowledge Augustine as a saint. In addition, he is the patron saint of the Augustinians and a distinguished Catholic doctor of the Church. On August 28, the day of his passing, there is a memorial service. Theologians, printers, brewers, and several cities and dioceses are all patronized by Augustine. His ideas had a significant impact on the medieval worldview.
Because of his beliefs on redemption and divine grace, he is regarded by many Protestants, particularly Calvinists and Lutherans, as one of the theological founders of the Protestant Reformation. St. Augustine was regarded as the most important of the early Church Fathers by Protestant Reformers in general and Martin Luther in particular. Luther belonged to the Order of the Augustinian Eremites from 1505 to 1521.
His beliefs are more contentious in the East and were particularly criticized by John Romanides, but other theologians and Eastern Orthodox Church leaders, most notably Georges Florovsky, have shown strong support for his works. The filioque, his most contentious theory, was disapproved of by the Eastern Orthodox Church.
His opinions on predestination, the theory of grace, and original sin are among his other contentious teachings. He has inspired numerous Eastern Church Fathers, most notably Gregory Palamas, and is still regarded as a saint despite being wrong on some matters. His feast day is observed on June 15 in the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches.
Biography of St. Augustine
Throughout the different Christian denominations, St. Augustine of Hippo, often called Saint Augustine or Saint Austin, is referred to by a number of cognomens, such as Blessed Augustine and the Doctor of Grace.
St. Augustine served as the bishop of Hippo Regius, which was located in present-day Annaba, Algeria.
In the Roman province of Numidia, in the municipium of Thagaste (present-day Souk Ahras, Algeria), St. Augustine was born in 354. His father, Patricius, was a pagan who became a Christian on his deathbed; his mother, Monica or Monnica, was a devoted Christian. He had a sister whose name is unknown but is commonly recalled as Perpetua, and a brother named Navigius.
Most academics concur that Augustine and his family were native Berbers from North Africa, but they were highly Romanized and spoke solely Latin at home out of pride and respect. In passing, Augustine identifies himself as a Roman African in his works. For instance, he calls Faustus of Mileve “an African Gentleman,” Ponticianus “a country man of ours, insofar as being African,” and Apuleius “the most notorious of us Africans.”
The fact that Augustine’s father’s forebears were freedmen of the gens Aurelia who were granted full Roman citizenship by the Edict of Caracalla in 212 is implied by the family name Aurelius. At the time of his birth, Augustine’s family had been Roman in legal terms for at least a century. Based on her name, it is assumed that his mother, Monica, was of Berber descent; nevertheless, Augustine’s first tongue was probably Latin because his family belonged to the highest class of citizens known as honestiores, or honorable men.
Around 31 kilometers (19 miles) south of Thagaste, in the little Numidian city of Madaurus (now M’Daourouch), St. Augustine was sent to school when he was eleven years old. He learned about pagan beliefs and customs there, as well as Latin literature. He and many of his pals took pears from a neighborhood garden, which gave him his first understanding of the nature of sin. In his autobiography, Confessions, he recounts this tale. He understands that the pears were “tempting neither for its colour nor its flavour”; he had enough “much better” fruit and was neither hungry nor impoverished. Augustine laments this previous transgression over the course of the following chapters, realizing that one does not want evil for its own sake.
Rather, “through an inordinate preference for these goods of a lower kind, the better and higher are neglected”. To put it another way, when man egregiously chooses the smaller good over the larger good, he is tempted to sin. Augustine eventually comes to the conclusion that he was able to enjoy this heist because of the positive “companionship” he had with his accomplices.
Through the kindness of his fellow countryman Romanianus, Augustine was able to continue his rhetorical studies in Carthage at the age of 17, even though it was beyond his family’s finances. Despite his mother’s wise counsel, Augustine briefly led a hedonistic life as a young man, hanging around with young guys who brag about their sexy antics. Inexperienced males like Augustine were prompted to look for or fabricate stories about sexual adventures in order to win their acceptance.
He studied Cicero’s dialogue Hortensius (now lost) while he was a student in Carthage, and he said it had a profound effect on him, igniting his passion for knowledge and his intense desire for the truth. His interest in philosophy began as a result. To his mother’s dismay, Augustine converted to Manichaean culture despite being brought up as a Christian.
In Carthage, St. Augustine started seeing a young woman when he was around 17. The woman continued to be his lover even though his mother wanted him to wed someone from his class. The lady gave birth to Augustine’s son Adeodatus, which means “Gift from God,” who was considered exceptionally clever by his peers. Despite his mother’s warnings to abstain from immorality (sex outside marriage), Augustine continued to be with her for more than fifteen years. St. Augustine broke up with his lover in 385 so that he could get ready to wed a teenage heiress. He had already become a Christian and made the decision to become a Christian priest by the time he was able to marry her, therefore the marriage did not take place.
Although St. Augustine was a bright student from the start and had a strong intellectual curiosity, he was never able to understand Greek since his first Greek instructor was a cruel guy who frequently beat his students, and Augustine rebelled and refused to learn. He learned a little Greek, but he was never eloquent in it, and it was too late by the time he realized he needed to know it. Nevertheless, he became an expert in Latin.
Confessions
At the age of 31, St. Augustine became a Christian in late August of 386 after learning that Ponticianus and his companions had read the life of Anthony of the Desert for the first time. St. Augustine later said that hearing a child’s voice say “take up and read” was what led to his conversion. As a last resort, he randomly opened a book of writings by St. Paul (Confessiones 8.12.29), and read Romans 13:13–14: “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 fulfil the lusts thereof.”
His Confessions (Latin: Confessiones), which he later wrote, contains a description of his conversion and is considered a classic work of Christian theology and an important work in the history of autobiography. This piece is an expression of penitence and gratitude. The Confessions discusses the nature of time, causation, free will, and other significant philosophical issues even though it is intended as a biography of his life. From that effort, the following is extracted:
Belatedly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I loved thee. For see, thou wast within and I was without, and I sought thee out there. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things thou hast made. Thou wast with me, but I was not with thee. These things kept me far from thee; even though they were not at all unless they were in thee. Thou didst call and cry aloud, and didst force open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and didst chase away my blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrant odours and I drew in my breath; and now I pant for thee. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for thy peace.
St. Augustine’s Beliefs
On the Easter Vigil, April 24–25, 387, Ambrose baptized St. Augustine and his son Adeodatus in Milan. Augustine finished writing his apology on the holiness of the Catholic Church in 388, a year later. Adeodatus and Augustine also went back to Africa in that year. As they were getting ready to leave for Africa, Augustine’s mother Monica passed away in Ostia, Italy. They arrived at the home of Augustine’s family and settled into an aristocratic lifestyle. Adeodatus also passed away shortly after. After that, Augustine sold his estate and donated the proceeds to the underprivileged. All he kept was the family home, which he and a few associates turned into a monastic institution. In addition, he made significant contributions to Christian rhetoric, but his preaching style was also a significant contribution.
St. Augustine abandoned his career as a professor of rhetoric after becoming a Christian in order to focus more on his preaching. In Hippo Regius (present-day Annaba), Algeria, St. Augustine received his priestly ordination in 391. He was particularly curious about how the Christian Church would be able to accomplish its goal of learning and teaching the many Bible verses with the aid of his prior rhetorical training in Italian schools. He rose to prominence as a preacher (more than 350 of his sermons have survived and are thought to be authentic), and he was well-known for opposing the Manichaean religion, which he had previously practiced. During his lifetime, he delivered between 6,000 and 10,000 sermons; unfortunately, only about 500 of those lectures are currently available.
Stenographers documented Augustine’s sermons as he delivered them. He would deliver several sermons over the course of a week, some of which lasted more than an hour. He would stand on a raised platform when addressing his audience, but when delivering sermons, he would approach the crowd. He tried to teach more about the Bible in his sermons by using a range of rhetorical strategies, such as word pictures, analogies, metaphors, similes, repetition, and antithesis. Additionally, as demonstrated in one of his sermons delivered in 412 AD, he employed questions and rhymes to discuss the distinctions between people’s lives on Earth and Heaven. According to Augustine, the ultimate objective of preachers is to guarantee their audience’s salvation.
Augustine of Hippo
The moniker “Augustine of Hippo” comes from his appointment as coadjutor bishop of Hippo in 395 and his subsequent elevation to full bishop. He also donated his property to the church of Thagaste. He held that role till his passing in 430. Despite having a full schedule consisting of sermon preparation and preaching at other churches in addition to his own, he made time to preach after being ordained because, during his lifetime, only bishops were permitted to do so. He would select the sections that the church would read each week in order to fulfill his mission as Bishop of Hippo, which was to minister to the individual members of his flock.
He felt that interpreting the Bible was his responsibility as a bishop. Confessions, his autobiographical work, was written between 397 and 398. Shortly after the Visigoths had ravaged Rome in 410, he wrote The City of God to comfort his fellow Christians. Augustine put in a lot of effort to persuade the Hippo community to become Christian. He continued to live a monastic life in the episcopal mansion even though he had abandoned his monastery.
In his Sancti Augustini Vita, Augustine’s friend Possidius, the bishop of Calama (now Guelma, Algeria), documented a large portion of his later life. In the final years of his life, St. Augustine led a sizable Christian community against many political and religious forces, which greatly impacted his writings. Possidius saw Augustine as a brilliant thinker and eloquent speaker who seized every chance to defend Christianity from its critics. Possidius also characterized Augustine’s personal attributes in depth, presenting a portrait of a man who ate modestly, worked relentlessly, loathed gossip, shunned the temptations of the flesh, and showed caution in the financial stewardship of his see.
Death and Sainthood
The Vandals, a Germanic tribe that had converted to Arianism, attacked Roman Africa sometime before Augustine’s death. In the spring of 430, as Augustine became ill for the last time, the Vandals attacked Hippo. Possidius claims that the healing of an ailing man during the siege was one of the few miracles ascribed to Augustine. As his death drew near, St. Augustine is said to have publicly repented and shown solidarity with sinners by excommunicating himself. Possidius’ biography states that he spent his last days in prayer and penance, asking to have the penitential Psalms of David placed on his walls so he could read them and “[weep] freely and constantly” as a result.
He oversaw the preservation of the church library in Hippo, which included all of its books. On August 28, 430, he passed away. The Vandals broke the siege of Hippo shortly after he passed away, but they soon returned and set the city on fire. Augustine’s library and cathedral were spared, but all else was destroyed.
Following his much acclaimed canonization, Pope Boniface VIII named Augustine a Doctor of the Church in 1298. August 28, the day he passed away, is his feast day. In addition to several cities and dioceses, he is revered as the patron saint of theologians, printers, and brewers. He is called upon to protect the eyes.
On August 28, there is a little feast honoring Augustine in the Church of England’s calendar of saints.
St. Augustine Books
The list of Augustine’s works includes over a hundred distinct titles, making him one of the most prolific Latin writers in terms of the number of surviving works. Many sermons and letters, exegetical works like commentaries on Genesis, the Psalms, and Paul’s Letter to the Romans, texts on Christian doctrine, such as De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Doctrine), apologetic works against the heresies of the Arians, Donatists, Manichaeans, and Pelagians, and a review of his earlier works, the Retractationes, are among them.
Aside from those, St. Augustine is most known for his Confessions, which is a first-hand narrative of his past life, and De civitate Dei, which is a 22-book work about the City of God. He wrote it to regain the trust of his fellow Christians after the Visigoths’ 410 sack of Rome severely damaged it. One of his masterpieces, On the Trinity, is probably more doctrinal in nature than the Confessions or the City of God. It is in this work that he devised what is now known as the ‘psychological analogy’ of the Trinity. He also addressed the question of why God grants people free will that might be abused for evil in his book On Free Choice of the Will (De libre arbitrio).
Legacy
According to Pierre Hadot, St. Augustine was heavily inspired by Stoicism, Platonism, and Neoplatonism in both his philosophical and theological reasoning. In particular, he was impacted by the writings of Plotinus, the author of the Enneads, most likely through the efforts of Porphyry and Victorinus. Augustine’s early writings still contain certain Neoplatonic ideas. Later philosophers like Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche would turn to his early and significant writings on the human will, a crucial ethical issue. The writings of Cicero, who is renowned for his teachings on argument, and Virgil, who is famed for his teachings on language, also had an impact on him. Augustine is regarded as one of the four Great Latin Church Fathers, together with Pope Gregory the Great, Ambrose, and Jerome.
In popular Art
Frank Bidart’s poem “Confessional” draws a comparison between the speaker’s relationship with his mother and that of Augustine’s relationship with his mother, Saint Monica.
Augustine is portrayed by 15-year-old Matteo Urzia, 25-year-old Alessandro Preziosi, and 76-year-old Franco Nero in the 2010 television miniseries Restless Heart: The Confessions of Saint Augustine.
The song “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” was released by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in 1967 as a part of his John Wesley Harding album. Joan Baez, Vic Chesnutt, Eric Clapton, John Doe, Thea Gilmore, Adam Selzer, and Dirty Projectors are among the musicians that have covered the song.
Bob Dylan’s “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” prompted the band The Chairman Dances to release “Augustine” in 2016. Augustine states in it that he doesn’t know why Dylan dreams about him.
“Saint Augustine in Hell” is a song about Saint Augustine written by English pop/rock singer and songwriter Sting. It was included in his fourth solo studio album, Ten Summoner’s Tales, which was released in March 1993.
