Allen Mae Cole 12-ICT

La Consolacion College

St. Augustine
CHRISTIAN BISHOP AND THEOLOGIAN

Credits to the owner;James O'Donnell

Saint Augustine of Hippo

Saint Augustine (Aurelius Augustine) is an early Christian theologian and philosopher from
Numidia whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western
philosophy.
St. Augustine, also called Saint Augustine of Hippo,his original Latin name is Aurelius
Augustinus, born on November 13, 354, in the Roman province of Numidia [now Souk Ahras,
Algeria] died on August 28, 430, Hippo Regius [now Annaba, Algeria]; feast day August 28),
bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430, his one of the Latin Fathers of the Church and perhaps the
most significant Christian thinker after St. Paul. Augustine’s adaptation of classical thought to
Christian teaching created a theological system of great power and lasting influence. His
numerous written works, the most important of which are Confessions (c. 400) and The City of
God (c. 413–426), shaped the practice of biblical exegesis and helped lay the foundation for
much of medieval and modern Christian thought. In Roman Catholicism he is formally
recognized as a doctor of the church.

Saint Augustine was born in Tagaste, a modest Roman community in a river valley 40 miles
(64 km) from the Mediterranean coast in Africa, near the point where the veneer of Roman
civilization thinned out in the highlands of Numidia. Augustine’s parents were of the respectable
class of Roman society, free to live on the work of others, but their means were sometimes
straitened. His mother, Monica or Monnica, was a devout Christian; his father Patricius was a
Pagan who converted to Christianity on his deathbed. Augustine considered the mother a
central figure and considered the father like a stranger. Scholars generally agree that Augustine
and his family were Berbers, an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa,[but that they were
heavily Romanized, speaking only Latin at home as a matter of pride and dignity. In his
writings, Augustine leaves some information as to the consciousness of his African heritage. For
example, he refers to Apuleius as "the most notorious of us Africans,to Ponticianus as "a
country man of ours, insofar as being African,and to Faustus of Mileve as "an African
Gentleman". 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.[32] It is assumed that his mother, Monica, was of Berber origin, on the basis of her
name,[33][34] 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.[33]At the age of 11,
Augustine was sent to school at Madaurus (now M'Daourouch), a small Numidian city about 19
miles (31 km) south of Thagaste. There he became familiar with Latin literature, as well as
pagan beliefs and practices.[35] 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. He tells this story
in his autobiography, The Confessions. He remembers that he did not steal the fruit because he
was hungry, but because "it was not permitted."[36] His very nature, he says, was flawed. 'It
was foul, and I loved it. I loved my own error—not that for which I erred, but the error
itself."[36] From this incident he concluded the human person is naturally inclined to sin, and in
need of the grace of Christ.

At the age of 17, through the generosity of his fellow citizen Romanianus,[37] Augustine went
to Carthage to continue his education in rhetoric. It was while he was a student in Carthage
that he read Cicero's dialogue Hortensius (now lost), which he described as leaving a lasting
impression and sparking his interest in philosophy.[38] Although raised as a Christian,
Augustine left the church to follow the Manichaean religion, much to his mother's despair.[39]
As a youth Augustine lived a hedonistic lifestyle for a time, associating with young men who
boasted of their sexual exploits. The need to gain their acceptance forced inexperienced boys
like Augustine to seek or make up stories about sexual experiences.[40] It was during this
period that he uttered his famous prayer, "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet."[41]

At about the age of 17, Augustine began an affair with a young woman in Carthage. Though
his mother wanted him to marry a person of his class, the woman remained his lover[42] for
over fifteen years[43] and gave birth to his son Adeodatus (b. 372 - d. 388),[44] who was
viewed as extremely intelligent by his contemporaries. In 385, Augustine ended his relationship
with his lover in order to prepare himself to marry a ten-year-old heiress. (He had to wait for
two years because the legal age of marriage for women was twelve.) By the time he was able
to marry her, however, he instead decided to become a celibate priest.[43][45]Augustine was
from the beginning a brilliant student, with an eager intellectual curiosity, but he never
mastered Greek[46]—he tells us that his first Greek teacher was a brutal man who constantly
beat his students, and Augustine rebelled and refused to study. By the time he realized that he
needed to know Greek, it was too late; and although he acquired a smattering of the language,
he was never eloquent with it. However, his mastery of Latin was another matter. He became
an expert both in the eloquent use of the language and in the use of clever arguments to make
his points.
Move to Carthage, Rome, Milan
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.[37]
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 the apathetic reception. It was the custom for students to pay their fees to
the professor on the last day of the term, and many students attended faithfully all term, and
then did not pay.Manichaean friends introduced him to the prefect of the City of Rome,
Symmachus, who while traveling through Carthage had been asked by the imperial court at
Milan[47] to provide a rhetoric professor. Augustine won the job and headed north to take his
position in Milan 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 fervour for Manichaeism, he was never an initiate or "elect",
but an "auditor", the lowest level in the sect's hierarchy.[47] While still at Carthage a
disappointing meeting with the Manichaean Bishop, Faustus of Mileve, a key exponent of
Manichaean theology, started Augustine's scepticism of Manichaeanism.[47] In Rome, he
reportedly turned away from Manichaeanism, embracing the scepticism of the New Academy
movement. Because of his education, Augustine had great rhetorical prowess and was very
knowledgeable of the philosophies behind many faiths.[48] At Milan, his mother's religiosity,
Augustine's own studies in Neoplatonism, and his friend Simplicianus all urged him towards
Christianity.[37] Initially Augustine was not strongly influenced by Christianity and its ideologies,
but after coming in contact with Ambrose of Milan, Augustine reevaluated himself and was
forever changed.

Like Augustine, Ambrose was a master of rhetoric, but older and more experienced.[49]
Augustine was very much influenced by Ambrose, even more than by his own mother and
others he admired. Augustine arrived in Milan and was immediately taken under the wing by
Ambrose. Within his Confessions, Augustine states, "That man of God received me as a father
would, and welcomed my coming as a good bishop should."[50]Soon, their relationship grew,
as Augustine wrote, "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."[50]
Augustine visited Ambrose in order to see if 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 he was spiritually led into the faith of Christianity.[50]

Augustine's mother had followed him to Milan and arranged a marriage for him. Although
Augustine accepted this marriage, for which he had to abandon his concubine, he was deeply
hurt by the loss of his lover. He wrote, "My mistress being torn from my side as an impediment
to my marriage, my heart, which clave to her, was racked, and wounded, and bleeding."
Augustine confessed that he was not a lover of wedlock so much as a slave of lust, so he
procured another concubine since he had to wait two years until his fiancée came of age.
However, his emotional wound was not healed, even began to fester.[51]There is evidence that
Augustine may have considered this former relationship to be equivalent to marriage.[52] In his
Confessions, he admitted that the experience eventually produced a decreased sensitivity to
pain. 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 leisure
of Christian life.[53]

The Conversion of St. Augustine by Fra Angelico[56]

In late August of 386,[57] at the age of 31, after having heard and been inspired and moved by
the story of Ponticianus'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 "Transformation of Believers" section, consisting of chapters 12 to
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.
[58]

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 and a
key text in the history of autobiography. This work is an outpouring of thanksgiving and
penitence. Although it is written as an account of his life, the Confessions also talks about the
nature of time, causality, free will, and other important philosophical topics.[59] The following is
taken from that work:

Late have I loved Thee, O Lord; and behold,

Thou wast within and I without, and there I sought Thee.
Thou was with me when I was not with Thee.
Thou didst call, and cry, and burst my deafness.
Thou didst gleam, and glow, and dispell my blindness.
Thou didst touch me, and I burned for Thy peace.
For Thyself Thou hast made us,
And restless our hearts until in Thee they find their ease.
Late have I loved Thee, Thou Beauty ever old and ever new.

The baptism of St. Augustine by St. Ambrose

St.Ambrose (better known in English as Ambrose (/ˈæmbroʊz/), was a bishop of Milan who
became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century ) baptized Augustine,
along with his son Adeodatus, in Milan on Easter Vigil, April 24–25, 387. St. Augustine was a
long way from his northern-Africa homeland when Milan’s Bishop Ambrose baptized him at
dawn on Easter in the year 387.His baptism climaxed one of the greatest conversion stories
ever. Augustine arrived at the baptismal font only after an agonizing process of deliberation.
St. Ambrose, the baptizer that day, was an esteemed preacher and a force to reckon with at a
tumultuous time in the imperial city of Milan, then serving as the seat of the Roman Empire’s
Western emperor.Augustine, 33 years old, was a teacher of rhetoric, the art of persuasive
public speaking. He hailed from a region located in today’s Algeria.Little was it known then that
Ambrose was baptizing someone destined to be ranked forever among Christianity’s greatest
thinkers and writers, the author, for example, of classics like the “Confessions” and “The City of
God.”

Sts. Ambrose and Augustine both are remembered today as invaluable Fathers of the
Church.Augustine’s journey to baptism began as a child when his mother, St. Monica, enrolled
him as a Christian catechumen. But his baptism was delayed into the future, not an uncommon
practice at the time.The youthful Augustine wrestled with issues of belief, especially their
implications for behavior. He wound his way among Christians, semi-Christians and other
believers of his fourth-century world.For him, a journey toward baptism entailed struggling to
decide what kind of man he wanted to be.Given the challenges of his often painful faith
journey, it is unsurprising that the first lines of his “Confessions” include the famous words,
“Our heart is restless, until it rests in you (Lord.)The journey that ultimately led Augustine to
Milan began in 383 when he traveled from northern Africa to Rome to accept a position as a
teacher of rhetoric. His Rome position proved dissatisfying to him, however.
So in 384 he accepted a similar position in Milan. There our rhetoric teacher encountered
Ambrose, the gifted speaker and preacher. It surprised Augustine that he was impressed by
Ambrose’s oratorical skill.

Equally surprising for Augustine, perhaps, was the positive attitude toward Scripture,
particularly the Old Testament, that Ambrose engendered in him.Ambrose’s available time for
conversation, however, was limited. Not only did he devote considerable time to study, but he
labored under pressures exerted by imperial authorities.
For Milan at this time was the seat of a teenage emperor, Valentinian II, whose imposing
mother Justina was an Arian Christian. As such, she believed that God the Father created Jesus
Christ and not, as the Nicene Creed holds, that God the Father and the Son are one in being.
During Augustine’s time in Milan, Justina attempted to seize churches from Ambrose for use by
the Arians. In this heated atmosphere, Ambrose showed himself a strong leader by standing up
to her imperial recklessness.Ambrose is remembered in church history for stating flatly, “The
emperor is in the church, not above it.”Less than a year before his baptism Augustine had what
people today might term “a religious experience.” He felt called to read a passage in St. Paul’s
Letter to the Romans (13:13-14) that convinced him to change his lifestyle and “put on the Lord
Jesus Christ.”He was moved profoundly. Finally he could accept baptism.Preparing for baptism
by Ambrose meant enrolling in a demanding process of instruction involving two sessions daily
on each Lenten weekday, for an amazing total of 60 sessions, according to “Font of Life,” by
Garry Wills, a scholar of Augustine.
Ambrose clearly accorded huge importance to baptism.When the newly baptized Christians
emerged from the baptismal waters, they donned white gowns that signified putting on Christ’s
new life and were worn for the week ahead. Wills explains:“When the baptizands come from
the water, Ambrose says, it is like Christ coming from the tomb: ‘Since baptism is like death,
surely when you are submerged and re-emerge (from the water) this is like a resurrection.'”