St.

Augustine
Life and Teachings
 Who is St. Augustine?

Birth Conversion
01 Augustine was born in Tagaste,
North Africa;
03 Through the pervent prayers of St.
Monica, Augustine was baptized
today – Souk-Ahras Algeria
by St. Ambrose to Christianity

Education Teachings
02 Augustine was sent to primary and
secondary school and obtained his
04 Augustine became a defender of
Christianity through hisworks and
teachings
degree on Liberal Arts in Rhetorics
 Birth St. Augustine (Aurelius Augustinus)

November 13, 354 – Augustine was born in Tagaste;

today – Souk-Ahras Algeria
Persons close to his life
Patricius, his father was a pagan and worked as
Roman official
Monica, a devout Catholic, was very instrumental in
the conversion of her son
Navigius, his brother
Perpetua, his sister who became a nun
Alypius, his best friend
Romanianus, a benefactor in college
Adeodatus, Augustine’s son born out of wedlock
St. Ambrose, baptized him to Christianity
August 28, 430 Augustine died on his deathbed
while Africa was ransacked by the barbarians
Modern picture of Souk-Ahras
Algeria in North Africa

The birthplace of St. Augustine

St. Monica and St. Augustine
 Education
Augustine studied first in Thagaste, then in the
nearby town of Madaura, and finally at Carthage, the great
city of Roman Africa.
At Thagaste, Augustine received a classical Latin
education in the local school. He loved Latin literature but
hated arithmetic and Greek.
Augustine was sent to Maduara, a centre of
education in Roman North Africa fifteen kilometres (twenty
miles) south of Thagaste to continue his education. He was
sent there to study rhetoric at the age of 12. Augustine became
fascinated with pagan Latin literature especially the works of
Cicero and Virgil. His readings on Cicero influenced him to
study philosophy.
Augustine moved to Carthage to be trained in
rhetoric at a higher level. Augustine described rhetoric as the
skill required for the effective public communication of what
a person was thinking. After his period of full-time education
ended, Augustine became a teacher in the year 374 in
Thagaste, his home town.
Madaura (Madauros in Latin)
is an ancient town situated 50
kilometres from Thagaste in
the district of Souk Ahras.

Thagaste (or Tagaste) was

a Roman city in present-day
Algeria, now called Souk
Ahras. The town was the
birthplace of Saint Augustine.

Carthage, Latin Carthago,

was a great city of antiquity on
the north coast of Africa, now
a residential suburb of the city
of Tunis, Tunisia.
 Conversion
A. Augustine as a Manichean
In the year 370, Augustine at the age of fifteen years
moved to Carthage for his university studies, and it was there that the
Manichean sect began its nine-year influence on him. In Carthage
pleasure reigned supreme, and Augustine became its delighted slave.
Augustine joined the wildest young men of Carthage. He took a
partner, and they soon were parents of a baby boy whom they named
Adeodatus.
Augustine pushed aside the Christian faith. His mother,
Monica, had raised him as a catechumen of the Christian church.
Although her religion did not hold an important place in his early life,
the Christian religion never totally lost its grip upon him. When he was
twenty-two years of age, the death of a close friend greatly distressed
him. It caused him to reconsider the claims of the Bible. He was
fascinated with the problem of the origin of evil.
When he attempted to find a solution for this problem in
the New Testament he was disappointed by the coarse and rustic style of
his Latin Old Testament compared to the elegance of the Greek classics.
Instead of embracing the Christian faith, Augustine at the age of
seventeen years in 373 joined a sect called the Manicheans.
Augustine as a Manichean

The founder of the sect was Mani, a Persian born about

the year 216. He claimed that he was an especially inspired "Apostle
of Jesus Christ." Mani taught that the universe was comprised of two
eternally opposing substances--light and darkness. Mani held that
there were thus two Gods. One god created good, the other created
evil. The conclusion of Mani that no human being could be held
totally accountable for his or her sins was attractive to Augustine.
Augustine had questions about the so-called "problem of
evil," especially the relationship between God and evil. He asked:
"Where is evil? What is its origin? How did it come into the world?
Where then does evil come from, if God made all things and, because
he is good, made things to be good?“ Augustine believed that while
the Christian faith was based on faith, Manicheanism was based on
reason, and thus provided the truth. Finding the truth was, after all, the
main goal of Augustine. For nine years, Augustine admits, "we
[Manichees] were seduced and we seduced others, deceived and
deceiving by various desires, both openly...and secretly."
[Confessions 4, 1, 1] He now regretted not only that he had been
attracted to their false teaching of the Manichees but also that he had
led others to follow him.
B. Augustine’s Intellectual conversion

Augustine had begun to attend the church services of

Ambrose, who was a gifted preacher and Bishop of Milan. All
Augustine sought at first was to observe the style of Ambrose as an
orator. But the choice of words and intellectual skill of Ambrose
impressed Augustine. Gradually Augustine began to be influenced
by the content of the sermons of Ambrose, and not just their
delivery. Ambrose with skill employed the rhetorical devices of
satire and allegorical interpretation in his sermons.
It was through these sermons that Augustine learned
to understand and appreciate allegory. This new understanding
gave him a whole new perspective on the Christian faith. At this
time Augustine began to study Neo-Platonism. This was a
philosophical movement to revive many of the teachings of Plato.
This study helped Augustine to move beyond a materialistic world
view, while the teachings of Christ he heard from the lips of
Ambrose provided a tangible path to the search for spiritual truth.
Source
http://www.augnet.org/en/life-of-augustine/in-italy/1106-
intellectual-conversion/
B. Augustine’s Intellectual conversion Conversion
As Augustine came to appreciate the
Christian Scriptures more and more, his dissatisfaction
The "Cassiciacum" park beside the Casciago church
with his career increased. He came to see his career in
rhetoric as selfish, shallow and unfulfilling. A few
weeks before the summer holidays he took a leave of
absence from the imperial court. Along with some close
friends and family he retired to a country villa at
Cassiciacum for a period of reading, discussion, and
prayer. There Augustine and his friends researched and
discussed Neo-Platonism , the problems of science, and
various systems of Greek philosophy.
His intellectual conversion was complete.
He knew he had to seek Christian baptism, although his
dramatic moment of moral conversion in a private
garden in Milan had yet to occur before he would be
willing to approach the waters of baptism.
Source
http://www.augnet.org/en/life-of-augustine/in-italy/1106-
intellectual-conversion/
C. Augustine’s Moral conversion
Augustine became a popular and successful
professor of rhetorics in the imperial city of Milan. Yet he
was still in the years of turmoil even at the age of thirty-two.
When Augustine heard about the Bishop of Milan, Ambrose
who was a great orator like him, Augustine attended his
sermons out of curiosity. He was interested in the style, and
not in the content. A conversion of his mind slowly took
place as Ambrose led him to an understanding of the Gospels.
He began to attend church regularly, but was not yet
thoroughly convinced. [Confessions 6:4]
Augustine was baptized by St. Ambrose together
with son Adeodatus and his friend Alypius. However, the
greatest conversion of St. Augustine was the conversion of
the heart. It was the time when he read the epistle of St. Paul
to the Romans (Rom. 13:13-14 "Not in carousing and
drunkenness, not in sexual excess and lust, not in
quarrelling and jealousy. Rather, put on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires
of the flesh ”
Augustine and Adeodatus were baptized by St. Ambrose
 Highlights
391 - He is ordained a priest in Hippo.
354 - Born at Thagaste, North Africa.
392 - Requests biblical commentaries from
361 - Experiences serious illness while in grammar
Jerome, debates Fortunatus the Manichee
school.
c. 395 - He succeeds Valerius as bishop of Hippo.
370 - rhetoric in Carthage, takes a concubine.
397 - Participates in Councils of Carthage, which
c. 371 - His father dies; his son, Adeodatus, is born.
defined the structure of the African church
c. 372 - He becomes a Manichee "hearer."
400 - Writes his Confessions.
376 - Teaches rhetoric in Carthage
c. 411 - Attends Collatio (debates ending in the
383 - Sails to Rome despite the objections of his
condemnation of the Donatists)
mother; he becomes disillusioned with
412 - Starts thirteen years of work on his book,
Manicheism
City of God.
384 - In Rome he meets Symmachus, who
416 - At a Council in Mileve he joins in
appoints him official orator in Milan
condemnation of Pelagius and Celestius.
386 - He converts to the Christian church; spends
419 - Begins writing against Julian of Eclanum.
months at Cassisiacum.
423 - Considers resigning over scandal involving
387 - Baptized by Ambrose; Monica, his mother,
Antoninus, whom he had ordained.
dies.
426 - He begins writing his Retractions.
388 - He establishes a monastic community in
430 - Augustine dies, as Vandals besiege Hippo.
Thagaste.
390 - Adeodatus dies.
Famous Writings of St. Augustine
 1. The Confessions Famous Writings

The Confessions of St. Augustine have been considered

his autobiography and memoir. Augustine’s work was a complete
loosing of oneself to God. Giving up completely all of worldly
possessions, including bodily and mind possession, such as emotions
and intellectual thoughts. Confessions is a prayer lifted up to God; one
of praise, understanding, and adoration.
It narrates the crucial episodes and events in which he
sees and celebrates the mysterious actions of God's provident grace.
Thus he follows the windings of his memory as it re-presents the
upheavals of his youth and the stages of his disorderly quest for
wisdom.
On the one hand, it obviously refers to the free
acknowledgment, before God, of the truth one knows about oneself--
and this obviously meant, for Augustine, the "confession of sins." But,
at the same time, and more importantly, “confessions” means to
acknowledge, to God, the truth one knows about God. To confess,
then, is to praise and glorify God; it is an exercise in self-knowledge
and true humility in the atmosphere of grace and reconciliation.
 2. Enchiridion

Literally means a book containing essential information

on a certain subject. The Enchiridion is among the final books by
Augustine. It was written after the death of Saint Jerome which
occurred on 30th September 420. Augustine usually refers to this
book by the title, "On Faith, Hope and Love," because he develops
his subject under these three headings. Enchiridion is one of the most
important of all of Augustine's writings. The Enchiridion is a treatise
on the grace of God. Augustine comments that the shortest complete
summary of the Christian faith that God is to be served by man in
faith, hope, and love. In this book, Augustine presents the Apostle’s
Creed , the Lord’s Prayer and the doctrine of Creation.
He follows under the first heading the order of the
Apostles Creed, and then refutes, without naming them, the
Manichean, Apollinarian, Arian, and Pelagian heresies. Under the
second heading Augustine gives a brief exposition of the Lord’s
Prayer. The third part is a discourse on Christian love.
 In the City of God, Augustine claimed that there are two 3. The City of God
cities: one of humans and one of God. Augustine countered the Platonist
idea of gods. Platonists proposed that demons act as an intercessor between
gods and humans, that gods never interact with humans and vice versa.
Augustine wrote, “On the other hand, they hold that ‘gods never have direct
contact with men [humans]’ and therefore suppose that these demons are
established midway between men [humans] and gods, to carry men’s
[human’s] requests to the gods and to bring back the benefits the gods have
granted”
After this statement, Augustine continued to dispute the
various ideas associated with this thought. “Are there any good demons
who might assist the human soul to attain salvation?” Within the following
passage, Augustine stated that since these men believe demons act as
mediators between them (humans) and gods, since they count on demons to
reach gods, those humans will only be led astray from the one true God.
For only through God, and God alone, can the soul of humans attain
salvation.
Attacking many heresies, he established the two cities, and
where our priorities of love should be set. If we are in the city of God, then
we love the world, for God created the world, but before we love these
possessions, we love God. Therefore, the world is not an evil place itself;
however, the actions, or motivation behind the actions of humans, create
sin. When humans live within the city of humans, they have no concrete
concept of true virtue, passions, and justice. These humans will be lead
astray from God by their demons, their temptations, for they do not
communicate with God alone—their demons talk for them.
An edition of the City of God published in 1610
 4. On The Trinity
"On the Trinity" (De Trinitate) is most likely Augustine's
most difficult work..The theology of the Trinity is a difficult subject to
explain or discuss. References to the Trinity in the Bible are few, and
their meaning is not always obvious - indeed, they can easily be read
as contradictory. There is no explicit description of the Trinity in the
Scriptures at all. The orthodox view of the Trinity (as three persons in
one God) is an inferential conclusion from the Bible that took
generations to assemble. In light of these limitations,. This problem is
sufficiently difficult that many people in the time of Augustine opted
to classify it solely as a Mystery of Religion that would be understood
in the next life but not in this one.
Augustine undertook two tasks in writing On the Trinity.
He first wished to combat non-Trinitarian heresy by showing the
support for the concept in the Bible and by showing that the various
Biblical references were not inherently contradictory. His second
motive was to attempt to understand the Trinity more deeply. "On the
Trinity" is a long book, the second longest work that Augustine wrote.
Augustine in his teaching maintains the equality of the persons: that
the Son is equal to the Father, and the Holy Spirit equal to both. The
Father is the Lover, the Son is the Beloved and the Holy Spirit is the
love between the Father and the Son.
Teachings of St.
Augustine

1. God
2. Problem of Evil
3. The Trinity
4. On Grace
Teachings of St.
Augustine
1. God
Augustine believed in a hierarchy of being in
which God was the Supreme Being on whom all
other beings, that is, all other links in the great
chain of being, were totally dependent. All
beings were good because they tended back
toward their creator who had made them from
nothing.

2. Existence of Evil
Humans, however, possess free will, and can
only tend back to God by an act of the will.
Man's refusal to turn to God is, in this way of
thinking, nonbeing, or evil, so although the
whole of creation is good, evil comes into the
world through man's rejection of the good, the
true, and the beautiful, that is, God.
3. The Trinity
Augustine taught the church that God is a Trinity of love.
He certainly did not invent the idea that God is love; that
is clearly stated in the New Testament (1 John 4:15). Nor
did he construct the doctrine of the Trinity. Love cannot
exist on its own because it is not a thing or an attribute
possessed by a thing. In other words, God cannot be love
unless there is something for him to love. But if that
something were not part of himself, he would not be
perfect. The Bible does not teach us that God needed the
creation in order to have something to love, because if
that were true, he could not be fully himself without it.
So Augustine reasoned that God must be love inside
himself. To his mind, the Father is the one who loves, the
Son is the one who is loved (the “beloved Son” revealed
in the baptism of Jesus), and the Holy Spirit is the love
that flows between them and binds them together. It is
in the Spirit, moreover, who binds believers to God and
makes us partakers by adoption of that love which is
intrinsic to the Trinity’s being.
4On Grace
St. Augustine is the doctor of Grace. He wrote many
treatises on the subjects of free choice of the will as well as grace
throughout his lifetime. In Grace and Free Will, written in 427, he
explained simply why he believed in free will. If there was no free
will, then why did God give us the Ten Commandments, and why
did he tell us to love our neighbor? Augustine's arguments against
the Pelagian heresy set the doctrine of grace for the Catholic
Church to the present day. Pelagius thought that man could
achieve virtue and salvation on his own without the gift of grace,
that Jesus was simply a model of virtue. This of course attacks the
Redemption of man by Christ! If man could make it on his own,
then the Cross of Christ becomes meaningless! But Augustine
placed emphasis on man's utter sinfulness through the original
sin of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3); the two possible outcomes in the
Final Judgement of mankind (Matthew 25:31-46), and the blessing
and efficacy of grace, a free gift of God through Jesus Christ. He
recalls John 15:5: "I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever
remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me
you can do nothing," as well as Ephesians 2:8 - "For by grace you
have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift
of God." Grace disposes man to raise him to a life of virtue, which is
the ground of human freedom. "When I choose rightly I am
free." Both grace and free will are necessary for salvation. The
Council of Orange enshrined Augustine's teaching on grace and
free will in 529 AD.
INTERIORITY is an exercise of coming to know both God and
oneself. Interiority is the return to the heart in order to discover
God. It involves three process: Aversio (to be aware of the need
of God; Introversio ( entering into one’s heart and finding Christ
in the loneliness and silence of the heart; Conversio, finding
God in one’s heart lead one to conversion.
TRUTH. We are rooted in the truth known by reason and faith
about ourselves and the world with knowledge that God is the
source of all truth. With faith and reason, like two great wings,
we fly to Truth. Man is in constant search for God in the pursuit
of Truth.
FREEDOM. Human beings are endowed with a power that he
calls the will. He emphasizes the will to being the center of
freedom. He sees our will as free choice. So for whatever we
may choose to do, we become solely responsible for our actions
which are caused by external factors. Freedom is not the
capacity of doing whatever we want but to choose what is good
and what is leading us to God.
COMMUNITY. “The Augustinian community is basically a group
of persons who live their faith, hope and love.” Thus, the
Augustinian concept of community cannot be confused with a
mere sociological one. “Community” is required by human
nature: the human being is social; every human life is
inextricably linked to other human lives. This social dimension is
also an integral element of the Christian life.
FRIENDSHIP. In this world two things are essential: life and
friendship. Both should be highly prized and we must not
undervalue them. Life and friendship are nature’s gifts.
True friendship is not based on thinking about
ourselves and what the other person can do for us. It is based
on common concerns and values. We know we can share what
we really feel, what we really are and what we really care about
with true friends. Thus we can really only be true friends to each
other in so far as we can share some common commitments.
Augustine draws others together in friendship so that they might
seek God together.

SOLIDARITY. The image in each person of the Triune God is the

basis of human solidarity, it follows that in a communion of persons
there is also a likeness to the divine Trinity of persons. Solidarity is
between human persons. It involves the relationship of each one to his
own good and to that of others in the pursuit of a common goal.