Augustine of Hippo - Biography

Augustine of Hippo was born in Thagaste, (the modern day city of Souk Ahras in Algeria), on the 13th of November in 354. He died on the 28th of August in 430 in Hippo Regius (the modern day city of Annaba in Algeria), where he had been named Bishop thirty-five years earlier. As it is difficult to encapsulate any renowned figure, it is especially difficult to do so with Augustine of Hippo. As a philosopher and theologian, Augustine of Hippo vacillated between an optimistic Hellenistic view in his earlier years and a more pessimistic Christian view in his later years. Moving between such extremes, he accommodated a wide array of disciplines and thought in his over-arching desire to make sense of a world, in both theory and practice, seemingly so full of conflict, strife, and loss. Thus, it is one of his most revered traits and innovative aspects of his writings that he was able to commune diverging aspects from the four schools of Hellenistic philosophy (Epicureans, Stoics, Skeptics, and Platonists) along with various doctrines of Christian ideology. Among his voluminous body of work that includes numerous letters, sermons and exegetical texts, he is most known for his Confessiones (Confessions) 397–401, De civitate dei (On the City of God) 413–427, De trinitate (On the Trinity) 399–422/6, and De libero arbitrio (On Free Will), 386/8.

Except for approximately four years of his life, Augustine of Hippo spent his life in northern Africa. He was the son of Patricius, a pagan and Roman (either through ancestry, legal citizenship or both) who was a member of the council, and Monnica, a Christian and presumably of Berber origin. After his initial studies in Greek and Latin in Thagaste, Augustine of Hippo studied Latin and literature in Madaurus and eventually came under the influence of Cicero. He would credit Cicero’s Hortensius (the entirety of which no longer remains) as being the catalyst to his life-long relationship with, not just philosophy, but psychology, human nature and religion—essentially ‘wisdom’ in the ancient sense. Shortly thereafter, around the age of seventeen, Augustine of Hippo would continue his studies in Carthage with the generous support of a patron, Romanianus. He focused on studies in rhetoric, which would lead him to his first profession. While in Carthage, Augustine of Hippo became greatly influenced by the Manichaean religion and, essentially, a follower for roughly nine years. He lived large and well in Carthage where he met a young woman who became his lover for more than thirteen years and bore him a son, Adeodatus in 372. She would later become known as “The One” in his Confessions.

After a short return to Thagaste, Augustine of Hippo returned to Carthage to teach rhetoric and remained there until 383 when he left for Rome in search of more engaging and enlightened students. The Roman schools proved to be a disappoint for him and a year later he would find himself in Milan having won the prestigious position as a professor of rhetoric for the imperial court. Between the influences of Skepticism at the New Academy in Rome to that of the Bishop of Milan, Ambrose, Augustine of Hippo was moving fast away from Manichaean beliefs and on the threshold of his great, and now infamous, conversion. In particular, a reading on the life of St. Anthony of the Desert yielded Augustine of Hippo’s final turn towards embracing Christianity in total, giving up his pending future of an arranged marriage (already a grave provision of conflict and pain for him due to his lost lover), a burgeoning career in rhetoric and a privileged life. His conversion was incited by a young child’s voice:

“‘Take up and read; Take up and read.’” … “I arose; interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find. For I had heard of Antony, that coming in during the reading of the Gospel, he received the admonition, as if what was being read was spoken to him: Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me: and by such oracle he was forthwith converted unto Thee. Eagerly then I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I laid the volume of the Apostle when I arose thence. I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, in concupiscence. No further would I read; nor needed I: for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away.”

Confessions, Book VIII, 28 & 29

The account, in many ways, accounts for one of the untenable aspects Augustine of Hippo had with the Manichaean belief, which was the always presence of darkness over lightness, in which the latter could only strive to overshadow. While Augustine of Hippo fully converted and embraced Christianity, many scholars agree that the Manichaean influence can be read in his writing “if” only in deference or as repudiation. He, and his son, was baptized on the Easter Vigil in 387 by Ambrose in Milan. Shortly thereafter they, along with Augustine of Hippo’s mother who had accompanied him, embarked on their return to Africa. Unfortunately, his mother never made the final journey, dying in Ostia and his son died soon after their return.

After he returned home Augustine of Hippo would soon adopt a monastic way of life, like that he had been told of by his friend Pontitianus in Milan just prior to his conversion. He gave away his luxuries and eventually sold his inheritance to pursue a monastic foundation in Hippo Regius, where he was ordained as a priest in 391 and made Bishop four years later. He was at first quite reluctant to become priest and tried to avoid it, but obliged out of the community’s appeals. Augustine of Hippo’s preaching, orations and sermons became infamous and hundreds of his sermons have remained persevered.

The conversion of Augustine of Hippo was most clearly the most significant event in his life and it marks his evolution as a thinker. The Manichaean beliefs were influential in his youth and in his conversion as he was unable to attend to their over-arching and inexplicable cosmology. And while Cicero’s text pointed him in the direction of a more holistic way of study, in which he became quite influenced by the New Academy in Rome as well as Christian theology in Milan, it was perhaps the Platonists (or as referred to today, Neo-Platonists) that he came to regard that had even more of a considerable effect on his thinking and practice as it is ‘them’ he credits with enabling Christianity a viable option for him.

Scholars argue as to which particular Platonic texts he was exposed to, but most agree they were those of Plotinus and Porphyry. The Platonic readings vivified his idealist manner, which reified his will. More specifically, it aided him in his disregard from the purely moral dualistic nature of good and evil encouraged by his Manicheanist foundation. Such can be traced in the Confessions, which is essentially a form of autobiography (many call it the first), yet more importantly a rhetorical exposition that employs his life in yielding a lesson of loss and ascension. Thus, like Augustine of Hippo, one may find oneself lost in the materiality of life and its illusions and desire though one can find a way through scholarship (NeoPlatonism) and triumph, through an awareness of unity, over one’s sense of isolation and come to a place with/in God.

An exemplary form of rhetoric, Augustine of Hippo begins the Confessions with a discussion on language itself, which can aid one in connection with or to the world, and has the propensity to transcend the world ascending to a higher realm that while less intelligible is more unifying—the material and the immaterial. Essentially, this first dialogue prologues the journey of the Confessions. Particularly noteworthy sections of the most widely read text of medieval philosophy, are Book VIII, IX, and XI. In the first, Augustine of Hippo deals with the issue of “will” and how he attends to that in relation to his faith. An amazing account of ascension is made in Book IX, often referred to as the “vision at Ostia,” in which he and his mother ascend together beyond the worldly senses. This particular account of ascension is poignant in its acknowledged divergence from the Platonic ascent of the individual soul, (again accounting for and accommodating both).

In Book XI of the Confessions, Augustine of Hippo delves into an innovative discussion of time through a dialogue on creation via Genesis. Breaking with Platonism (and the overall Greek tradition) he accepts the notion that the world was created from nothing, that God created substance, and that the world was created when the world was created, neither before nor after anything, as “time” was created when the world was created and since God is eternal there is no before or after. His account of time he realizes is not sufficient, but it is an illuminating account that positions time as both relative and subjective. As God is only present (presence), so too is time. There is no ‘true’ past or future time—there is “a present of things past, a present of things present, and a present of things future.” Furthermore he psychologizes his account such that one understands that “the present of things past is memory; the present of things present is sight; and the present of things future is expectation.” In a very extreme point he posits time not only as relative, but also as subjective such that time is in concert with being, and that prior to Creation time has no meaning.

For Augustine of Hippo, God is the eternal point of origin and the unifying factor for all else. This is a perfect example of merging sensibilities such that in the Platonic tradition there is a divide, for instance, body and soul, but it is in God that thus is unified. Of course, it is not that simple, but for the sake of this summary, Augustine of Hippo begins with an absolute unity in God that as the hierarchy descends eventually becomes fragmented at the most base material level. This is further expounded upon in his text The City of God, in which Augustine of Hippo accounts for original sin and the issue of evil, an issue that he grappled with since his Manichean period. To begin with, sin is of the soul and not of the flesh, as both the Manicheans and Platonists had ascribed. He follows that the soul of Adam was the only, and hence “original,” soul God created. One’s individual soul is thus the soul of Adam, first and foremost, until it is individualized in one’s being. As such, original sin is thus universally accounted for and justified such that a child who dies and was not baptized can be automatically relegated to Hell because it is essentially original sin. God’s grace will save some from “eternal death,” which Adam’s sins originally ensured, but not all.

In regards to evil, there is a similar type of hierarchical structure that Augustine of Hippo puts forth to account for its presence. Against the Manichean notion that evil (and darkness) are intrinsic and, to a certain extant, over-riding, Augustine of Hippo employs Platonic form and Christian ideology that posits evil as a product of the lower realm, but not as a “thing” itself. Evil is the result of being misguided; it is the result of a deficiency in one’s will, taking up the mores of the inferior, adhering to a lower realm of ‘ascension’ as if it were of the higher realm. ‘True’ ascension is resting with the goodness of God and it is man’s responsibility to apply him/herself towards this goodness. In this way, evil is a byproduct of a deficiency of the human will and it is the responsibility of one’s will to ascend from one’s ‘lowly’ self obsession and to not “fall” again.

And, it is after the Fall that the world was divided into two cities—the city of God and the city of man. Clearly the latter is less than, yet it is most populated, and is God’s way to emphatically underscore the need for ascension. Only a few are selected by his grace to occupy the city of God—and it is not based on merit—as this constant reminder of adjudication. This masterful text, The City of God, was primarily written in refute to the growing desire for a polytheistic resurgence in Rome. Another ingenious work of moral rhetoric, it is the story of human history as told through a ‘tale of two cities’ in which it is utterly clear which city one should strive to become a citizen. Through a philosophical framework Augustine of Hippo psychologizes history, providing God as the light at the end of the tunnel. The text is innovative as well in its positioning of a separation between church and state, with the latter needing to be submissive to the former in order to attain a sense of unity.

The work reveals his greater shift towards the morality of his religion over the rationality of his philosophy, and is a much bleaker view of man’s destiny. His final views of man’s fate, though he will note his own misgivings on the soul in his late writings, are much more severe than his early days and come up against, and perhaps are strengthened by, his fighting against the Pelagians. The latter gave much more “freedom” and “ability” to the will of the individual over the predominance of “original sin,” which Pelagius questioned. In brief, Pelagius asserted that man essentially had a ‘second’ chance in light of the lesson learned from Adam’s sin. In this way, everyday man could will his way to goodness, so-to-speak. If one lived a good and virtuous life then one would be rewarded in passage to heaven. This of course flattens the preordained hierarchies set forth by God according to Augustine of Hippo and he was, of course, vehemently opposed. It was only by God’s grace that a few, “the elect,” would be saved from eternal damnation and this salvation revealed God’s mercy, as eternal damnation reveals his justice, and together his overall goodness as a just creator. Other than maintaining a paramount belief in this fated authority and hierarchy (which formally comes from a Platonic influence), the only other motivation was in the possibility of ascension, albeit temporary, as one—the majority—will still be damned.

While he continued to maintain, commensurate with both his philosophy and theology, that the everyday of man’s life is but a small percentage of reality, the reality of the everyday man became quite bleak. The gravity of his thinking and late morality had a long lasting effect on much of medieval philosophy and western Church doctrine. In particular he was an influential figure for Boethius, Anselm of Cantebury, and Thomas Aquinas. Martin Luther and John Calvin employed much of his late Christian doctrine in defense of the Reformation. His earlier discussions of the will were an influence on more modern figures such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche and Hannah Arendt. The latter wrote her dissertation on Augustine’s concept of love, Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin: Versuch einer philosophischen Interpretation (1929). His notion of time was recognized by Edmund Husserl and proved to be inspiring for Martin Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit (1927). Augustine of Hippo was a relentless and devout practitioner whose output, diversity, range and form remains a hallmark today.

Augustine (Aurelius Augustinus) was one of the greatest theologians of Western Christianity. (In his day the Mediterranean world consisted of an Eastern, Greek-speaking half and a Western, Latin-speaking half, with different ways of looking at things, and different habits of thought.) He was born 13 November 354 in North Africa, about 45 miles south of the Mediterranean, in the town of Tagaste (modern Souk-Ahras) in Numidia, in what is now Algeria, but near ancient Carthage (modern Tunis). His mother, Monnica, was a Christian, and his father for many years a pagan (although he became a Christian before his death). His mother undertook to bring him up as a Christian, and on one level he always found something attractive about Christ, but in the short run he was more interested in the attractions of sex, fame, and pride in his own cleverness. After a moderate amount of running around as a teen-ager, he took a mistress, who bore him a son when he was about eighteen. Theirs was a long-term relationship, apparently with faithfulness on both sides, and the modern reader is left wondering why he did not simply marry the girl. He never tells us this (and in fact never tells us her name), so that we can only guess. It seems likely that she was a freedwoman, and that the laws forbade marriage between a free-born Roman citizen and a slave, or an ex-slave.
When he was 19 and a student at Carthage, he read a treatise by Cicero that opened his eyes to the delights of philosophy.
He was from the beginning a brilliant student, with an eager intellectual curiousity, but he never mastered Greek -- 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 really needed to know Greek, it was too late; and although he acquired a smattering of the language, he was never really at home in 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. He became a teacher of rhetoric in Carthage, but was dissatisfied. 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. In his late twenties, Augustine decided to leave Africa and seek his fortune in Rome.
For a long time Augustine was attracted by the teachings of Manicheeism, named for Mani, a Persian who had preached an alternate form of Zoroastrianism, the dominant religion of Persia. Zoroaster had taught the existence of a power of light, God, the supreme Creator, and of a dark and evil power that opposed him. On the Zoroastrian (Parsi) view, the dark power was a rebel against his creator, and doomed to ultimate defeat. Mani, on the other hand, was a thoroughgoing dualist, who taught that there are two gods of equal power and eternity, and that the universe is the scene of an unending battle between light and darkness, good and evil, knowledge and ignorance, soul and body, etc. The Manichees as they moved west into the Roman Empire adopted many traits of what is generically called Gnosticism. In particular, they advertised themselves as being not an alternative to Christianity but as the advanced version of Christianity, as the faith for the spiritually mature, the intellectually gifted. They claimed that their beliefs were based on reason rather than authority, and that they had answers for everything, at least as soon as the learner was sufficiently advanced to comprehend them. They differed from the classical Gnostics by not contrasting spirit with matter. On their view, everything was composed of material particles, but these were either light or dark. Since the mind was composed of light particles, imprisoned in the body, a cage made of dark particles, something like the Gnostic contrast between spirit and matter was there. Members were divided into an inner circle, the "elect," who were expected to be celibate and vegetarian, so as to avoid all those dark particles, and the "learners," of whom considerably less was expected. Augustine signed up as a learner. He was at first completely captivated, but then met with a series of disappointments. The rank and file of the movement did not seem to be very clear thinkers. He met the leaders, who were advertised as the Towering Intellects of the Ages, and was not impressed.
Augustine prospered in Rome, and was eventually appointed chief professor of rhetoric for the city of Milan, at that time the capital city of the Empire in the West. It should be noted that this was an extremely prestigious appointment. In classical times, when laws were often made and issues voted on by huge public assemblies, when even juries typically had several hundred members, and when a man's public influence, or even on occasion his life, depended on his ability to sway large audiences, rhetoric -- the art of manipulating an audience -- was a skill that few men thought they could afford to neglect. (Socrates was one of the few, and we know what happened to him!) The art, at first intensely practical, had by Augustine's day become a display form admired for its own sake. However, the admiration was there. Every lawyer, arguing a case, was expected to give an eloquent speech, full of classical allusions and standard rhetorical flourishes. And Augustine was at the top of the field.
In Milan Augustine met the bishop Ambrose, and was startled to find in him a reasonableness of mind and belief, a keenness of thought, and an integrity of character far in excess of what he had found elsewhere. For the first time, Augustine saw Christianity as a religion fit for a philosopher.
Soon after his arrival in Milan, Augustine was plunged into two crises.
First, his mother arrived from Africa, and persuaded him that he ought to give up his mistress and get married. He agreed to a betrothal to a suitable young lady; but his betrothed was too young for immediate marriage, and so the actual wedding was postponed for two years. Meanwhile the mistress had been sent back to Africa. Augustine, not ready for two years of sexual abstinence, lapsed back into promiscuity.
The second crisis was that Augustine became a neo-Platonist. Plato, as interpreted by his later spokesmen, in particular by Plotinus, taught that only God is fully real, and that all other things are degenerations in varying degrees from the One--things are progressively less good, less spiritual, and less real as one goes rung by rung down the cosmic ladder. By contemplating spiritual realities, directing one's attention first to one's own mind and then moving up the ladder rung by one to the contemplation of God, one acquires true wisdom, true self-fulfilment, true spirituality, and union with God, or the One. Augustine undertook this approach, and believed that he had in fact had an experience of the presence of God, but found that this only made him more aware of the gulf between what he was and what he realized that he ought to be.
Meanwhile, he continued to hear Bishop Ambrose. And finally, partly because Ambrose had answers for his questions, partly because he admired Ambrose personally, and chiefly (or so he believed) because God touched his heart, he was converted to Christianity in 386 and was baptised by Ambrose at Easter of 387. About 12 years later he wrote an account of his life up to a time shortly after his conversion, a book called the Confessions, a highly readable work available in English. Ostensibly an autobiography, it is more an outpouring of penitence and thanksgiving.
The following prayer 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.
Thou hast burst my bonds asunder;

Unto Thee will I offer up an offering of praise.
Although written as an account of his life, the Confessions keeps digressing into speculations about the nature of time, the nature of causality, the nature of free will, the motives of human action, etc.
After his conversion, Augustine went back to his native Africa in 387, where he was ordained a priest in 391 and consecrated bishop of Hippo in 396. It was not his intention to become a priest. He was visiting the town of Hippo, was in church hearing a sermon, and the bishop, without warning, said, "This Church is in need of more priests, and I believe that the ordination of Augustine would be to the glory of God." Willing hands dragged Augustine forward, and the bishop together with his council of priests laid hands on Augustine and ordained him to the priesthood. (The experience may have colored Augustine's perception of such questions as, "Does a man come to God because he has chosen to do so, or because God has chosen him, and drawn him to Himself?") A few years later, when the Bishop of Hippo died, Augustine was chosen to succeed him.
He was a diligent shepherd of his flock, but he also found time to write extensively. He was an admirer of Jerome, and wrote him a letter hoping to establish a friendship, but the letter went astray. (In those days there was no public post office, and if you wanted to send a letter to a friend in Athens, you entrusted it to someone you knew who was travelling to Athens, or at least in that general direction, with instructions to deliver it or pass it on to someone else who would oblige.) Jerome did not get the letter, and the contents became public knowledge before he heard of it. Augustine, in addition to saying how much he admired Jerome, had offered some criticisms of something Jerome had written. Jerome was furious, and came close to writing Augustine off altogether. However, Augustine wrote him a second letter, apologizing and explaining what had happened, and Jerome was mollified. They had a long and intellectually substantial correspondence.
Augustine's written output was vast, and largely responsible for the fact that the entry for him in the index of the Encyc. Brit. is more than a column long. His surviving works (and it is assumed that the majority did not survive) include 113 books and treatises, over 200 letters, and over 500 sermons. His work greatly influenced Luther and Calvin, to the point where for a while Roman Catholic speakers and writers were wary of quoting him lest they be suspected of Protestant tendencies.
We have already mentioned his Confessions. a second great work of his is the book, The City of God. This was written after Rome had been sacked by invaders led by Alaric the Visigoth. It is a reply to those who said that the Roman Empire was falling apart because the Christians had taken over; he discusses the work of God in history, and the relation between the Christian as citizen of an earthly commonwealth and the Christian as citizen of Heaven.
His third great work is his De Trinitate ("On the Trinity"). Here, he discussed the doctrine of the Trinity by undertaking to compare the mind of man with the mind of God, forasmuch as man is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Augustine begins by pointing out a Trinitarian structure in the act of knowing something. He continues by pointing out a Trinitarian structure in the act of self-awareness. He concludes by pointing out a Trinitarian structure in the act of religious contemplation by which man sees himself as made in the image of God.

Augustine and the Donatists

Almost a century before Augustine was born, the Church in Africa had been torn apart by the Donatist controversy. For a brief account of this controversy (and the Pelagian and other controversies of the day), but a longer one than I am prepared to give here, I refer the reader to the relevant section of the book, Sketches in Church History, by Canon Robertson, which can be found at the Url address following: http://ccel.wheaton.edu/robertson/church-history/church-history.txt

During the persecution of the Church by the Emperor Decius, some Christian clergymen in Africa, or so it was alleged, had stood firm against threat of torture, imprisonment and death more consistently and nobly than others. The Donatists maintained that their clergy derived their ordinations from clergy with very good records of constancy under persecution, and that they were the Church of the Martyrs, as opposed to the Church of the Sell-outs, which was everybody else. They further held that sacraments received at the hands of unworthy ministers were of no value. Or at least it seems that they held this. Augustine had a long correspondence and controversy with them, and at one point they apparently replied that they did not hold this, to which Augustine replied, "In that case, will you kindly tell me what the controversy is all about, and what you and I have been debating for the last eighteen months, and what your bishops and ours have been out of fellowship with each other about for the last century?" The controversy dragged on, with part of the dispute historical (whether Bishop so-and-so, now seventy years dead, had really done what he was accused of doing), and part theological. It seems clear that the Donatists, at least most of the time, argued that the holiness of the Church depended on the holiness of its members, especially its clergy. Against them, Augustine maintained that the holiness of the Church is not derived from the average level of virtue of its individual members, but is derived from the Holiness of its Head, who is Christ.

Augustine and the Pelagians

In Augustine's day, a man from Britain named Morgan, or in Latin Pelagius (means "islander" -- consider the words "pelagic" and "archipelago"), began to preach, denouncing what he saw a a slackening of moral standards. He saw professed Christians living less than exemplary lives, and offering human frailty as an excuse. His reply was: "Nonsense. God has given you free will. You can follow the example of Adam, or the example of Christ. God has given everyone the grace he needs to be good. If you are not good, you simply need to try harder." Augustine asked him about original sin, and he replied that there is no such thing. Augustine asked him why, in that case, it was the universal custom to baptize infants, and he had no answer. Augustine saw the teaching of Pelagius as totally undermining the doctrine that God is the ultimate source of all good, and encouraging the virtuous and well-behaved Christian to feel that he had earned God's approval by his own efforts. Pelagius was condemned by Pope Innocent I, and then re-instated by Pope Zosimus. Augustine refused to accept the judgement of Zosimus, and ultimately won the day.

Near the end of his life, the Vandals, a barbarian people with a reputation for wanton destructiveness (hence our modern term "vandal"), who had earlier invaded Spain from the north and settled down there (hence the province of Spain called "Andalusia"), became involved in a civil war in Northern Africa, and their troops invaded Africa in huge numbers. The leader of the losing side took refuge in the town of Hippo, and the Vandals were besieging the town (which they ultimately captured) when Augustine, bishop of Hippo, died 28 August 430, aged 75.

PRAYER (traditional language)

O Lord God, who art the light of the minds that know thee, the Life of the souls that love thee, and the strength of the hearts that serve thee: Help us, following the example of thy servant Augustine of Hippo, so to know thee that we may truly love thee, and so to love thee that we may fully serve thee, whom to serve is perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

PRAYER (contemporary language)

O Lord God, the light of the minds that know you, the Life of the souls that love you, and the strength of the hearts that serve you: Help us, following the example of your servant Augustine of Hippo, so to know you that we may truly love you, and so to love you that we may fully serve you, whom to serve is perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. 

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 whose writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. He was bishop of Hippo Regius (present-day Annaba, Algeria) located in the Roman province of Africa. Writing during the Patristic Era, he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers. Among his most important works are City of God and Confessions, which continue to be read widely today.
According to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith."^[5] In his early years, he was heavily influenced by Manichaeism and afterward by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus.^[6] After his conversion to Christianity and his baptism in 387, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and different perspectives.^[7] Believing that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he helped to 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.^[8] His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Augustine's City of God was closely identified with 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.^[9]
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.^[10] 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 Eastern Orthodox Church, many of his teachings are not accepted. This is the same in the Oriental Orthodox communion. The most important doctrinal controversy surrounding his name is the filioque.^[11] Other doctrines that are sometimes unacceptable to the Eastern Orthodox Church are his view of original sin, the doctrine of grace, and predestination.^[12] Nonetheless, though considered to be mistaken on some points, he is still considered a saint, and his feast day is celebrated on 15 June.^[13] He carries the additional title of Blessed among the Orthodox, either as "Blessed Augustine" or "St. Augustine the Blessed."^[14]

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 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 Sacramental theology
  • 2.12 Statements on Jews
  • 2.13 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 at the School of Souk Ahras,Thagaste" by Benozzo Gozzoli

Augustine was born in 354 in the municipium of Thagaste (now Souk Ahras, Algeria) in Roman Africa.^[15][16] His mother, Monica, was a devout Christian; his father Patricius was a Pagan who converted to Christianity on his deathbed.^[17] Scholars believe that Augustine's ancestors included Berbers, Latins, and Phoenicians.^[18] He considered himself to be Punic.^[19] 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.^[20] It is assumed that his mother, Monica, was of Berber origin, on the basis of her name,^[18][21] 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.^[18] 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.^[22] His first insight into the nature of sin occurred when he and a number of friends stole fruit they did not even 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 on him and sparking his interest in philosophy.^[23]
At the age of 17, through the generosity of his fellow citizen Romanianus,^[23] 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 the despair of his mother.^[24] As a youth Augustine lived a hedonistic lifestyle for a time, associating with young men who boasted of their sexual exploits with women and urged the inexperienced boys, like Augustine, to seek experience or to make up stories about their experiences in order to gain acceptance and avoid ridicule.^[25] It was during this period that he uttered his famous prayer, "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet."^[26]
At a young age, 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^[27] for over thirteen years and gave birth to his son Adeodatus,^[28] who was viewed as extremely intelligent by his contemporaries.^[29] In 385, Augustine abandoned his lover in order to prepare himself to marry an heiress.^[30]

Teaching rhetoric

During the years 373 and 374, Augustine taught grammar at Thagaste. The following year he moved to Carthage to conduct a school of rhetoric, and would remain there for the next nine years.^[23] Disturbed by the unruly behavior of the students in Carthage, in 383 he moved to establish a school in Rome, where he believed the best and brightest rhetoricians practiced. However, Augustine was disappointed with the Roman schools, where he was met with apathy. Once the time came for his students to pay their fees, they simply fled. Manichaean friends introduced him to the prefect of the City of Rome, Symmachus, who had been asked to provide a professor of rhetoric for the imperial court at Milan.^[31]

Saint Augustine and Saint Monica (1846), by Ary Scheffer

Augustine won the job and headed north to take up his position in late 384. At the age of thirty, he had won the most visible academic position in the Latin world, at a time when such posts gave ready access to political careers. During this period, although Augustine showed some fervor for Manichaeism, he was never an initiate or "elect", but remained an "auditor", the lowest level in the sect's hierarchy.^[31]
While still at Carthage, he had begun to move away from Manichaeism, in part because of a disappointing meeting with the Manichaean Bishop, Faustus of Mileve, a key exponent of Manichaean theology.^[31] In Rome, he is reported to have completely turned away from Manichaeanism, and instead embraced the scepticism of the New Academy movement. At Milan, his mother pressured him to become a Christian. Augustine's own studies in Neoplatonism were also leading him in this direction, and his friend Simplicianus urged him that way as well.^[23] But it was the bishop of Milan, Ambrose, who had most influence over Augustine. Like Augustine, Ambrose was a master of rhetoric, but older and more experienced.^[32]
Augustine's mother had followed him to Milan and he allowed her to arrange a marriage, for which he abandoned his concubine. It is believed that Augustine truly loved the woman he had lived with for so long and was deeply hurt by ending this relationship. In fact, there is evidence that Augustine may have considered his relationship with the concubine to be equivalent to marriage, though not legally recognized as such.^[33] In his Confessions, he admitted that the experience eventually produced a decreased sensitivity to pain over time. 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.^[34] 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

Angelico, Fra. The Conversion of St. Augustine (painting).

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.^[35]

He later wrote an account of his conversion – his very transformation, as Paul described – in his Confessions (Latin: Confessiones), which has since become a must-read 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.^[31] That year, also, Adeodatus and Augustine returned to Africa,^[23] Augustine's home continent. Augustine's mother Monica died during the trip.^[36] Upon their arrival, they began a life of aristocratic leisure at Augustine's family's property.^[37][38] Soon after, Adeodatus, too, passed away.^[39] 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.^[23]

The Consecration of Saint Augustine by Jaume Huguet

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.^[31]
In 395 he was made coadjutor Bishop of Hippo, and became full Bishop shortly thereafter,^[40] hence the name "Augustine of Hippo"; and he gave his property to the church of Thagaste.^[41] 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."^[42]
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.^[43]

Death and veneration

Saint Augustine of Hippo
Tomb in San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro Basilica, Pavia.
Bishop, Philosopher, Theologian
Honored in	All Christianity
Major shrine	San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, Pavia, Italy
Feast	28 August (Western Christianity) 15 June (Eastern Christianity) 4 November (Assyrian)
Attributes	child; dove; pen; shell, pierced heart, holding book with a small church, bishop's staff, miter
Patronage	brewers; printers; theologians Bridgeport, Connecticut; Cagayan de Oro, Philippines;San Agustin, Isabela;

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.^[44] 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.^[45] 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.^[46]
Augustine was canonized by popular acclaim, and later recognized as a Doctor of the Church in 1298 by Pope Boniface VIII.^[47] 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.^[10]

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, 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.^[48]
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.^[49][50]

Thought

Part of a series on
Augustine of Hippo
Main topics
Original sin · Divine grace · Invisible church · Predestination · Incurvatus in se · Augustinian hypothesis · Just War · Augustinian theodicy
Works
The City of God · Confessions · On Christian Doctrine · Soliloquies · Enchiridion
Influences and followers
Plotinus · St. Monica · Ambrose · Possidius · Thomas Aquinas · Bonaventure · Luther · Calvin · Jansen
Related topics
Neoplatonism · Pelagianism Augustinians · Scholasticism · Jansenism · Order of St. Augustine
v t e

Anthropology

Augustine was one of the first Christian ancient Latin authors with very clear anthropological vision.^[51] 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.^[52] Augustine's favourite figure to describe body-soul unity is marriage: caro tua, coniunx tua — your body is your wife.^[53][54][55] 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.^[56] Soul is a kind of substance, participating in reason, fit for ruling the body.^[57] 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.^[58][59]
Like other Church Fathers such as Athenagoras,^[60] St. Augustine "vigorously condemned the practice of induced abortion" as a crime, in any stage of pregnancy,^[61] 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 Animae4.4).^[62]

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":^{[63][64][65][66]}

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.^[67] 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.^[68] Augustine also does not envision original sin as originating structural changes in the universe, and even suggests that the bodies of Adam and Eve were already created mortal before the Fall.^[69] 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.^[70]

Ecclesiology

See also: Ecclesiology

St. Augustine by Carlo Crivelli

Augustine developed his doctrine of the Church principally in reaction to the Donatist sect. He taught that there is one Church, but that within this Church there are two realities, namely, the visible aspect (the institutional hierarchy, the sacraments, and the laity) and the invisible (the souls of those in the Church, who are either dead, sinful members or elect predestined for Heaven). The former is the institutional body established by Christ on earth which proclaims salvation and administers the sacraments while the latter is the invisible body of the elect, made up of genuine believers from all ages, and who are known only to God. The Church, which is visible and societal, will be made up of "wheat" and "tares", that is, good and wicked people (as per Mat. 13:30), until the end of time. This concept countered the Donatist claim that only those in a state of grace were the "true" or "pure" church on earth, and that priests and bishops who were not in a state of grace had no authority or ability to confect the sacraments.^[71]:28 Augustine's ecclesiology was more fully developed in City of God. There he conceives of the church as a heavenly city or kingdom, ruled by love, which will ultimately triumph over all earthly empires which are self-indulgent and ruled by pride. Augustine followed Cyprian in teaching that the bishops and priests of the Church are the successors of the Apostles,^[71] and that their authority in the Church is God-given.

Eschatology

Augustine originally believed in premillennialism, namely that Christ would establish a literal 1,000-year kingdom prior to the general resurrection, but later rejected the belief, viewing it as carnal. He was the first theologian to expound a systematic doctrine of amillennialism, although some theologians and Christian historians believe his position was closer to that of modern postmillennialists. The mediaeval Catholic church built its system of eschatology on Augustinian amillennialism, where Christ rules the earth spiritually through his triumphant church.^[72] At the Reformation, theologians such as John Calvin accepted amillennialism. Augustine taught that the eternal fate of the soul is determined at death,^[73][74] and that purgatorial fires of the intermediate state purify only those that died in communion with the Church. His teaching provided fuel for later theology.^[73]

Epistemological views

Epistemological concerns shaped Augustine's intellectual development. His early dialogues [Contra academicos (386) and De Magistro (389)], both written shortly after his conversion to Christianity, reflect his engagement with skeptical arguments and show the development of his doctrine of inner illumination. Augustine also posed the problem of other minds throughout different works, most famously perhaps in On the Trinity (VIII.6.9), and developed what has come to be a standard solution: the argument from analogy to other minds.^[75] In contrast to Plato and other earlier philosophers, Augustine recognized the centrality of testimony to human knowledge and argued that what others tell us can provide knowledge even if we don't have independent reasons to believe their testimonial reports.^[76]

Just war

See also: Just War

Augustine asserted that Christians should be pacifists as a personal, philosophical stance.^[77] Nonetheless, he asserted, peacefulness in the face of a grave wrong that could only be stopped by violence would be a sin. Defense of one's self or others could be a necessity, especially when authorized by a legitimate authority. While not breaking down the conditions necessary for war to be just, Augustine nonetheless originated the very phrase, itself, in his work The City of God.^[78] In essence, the pursuit of peace must include the option of fighting to preserve it in the long-term.^[79] Such a war could not be pre-emptive, but defensive, to restore peace.^[80] Thomas Aquinas, centuries later, used the authority of Augustine's arguments in an attempt to define the conditions under which a war could be just.^[81][82]

Mariology

Although Augustine did not develop an independent Mariology, his statements on Mary surpass in number and depth those of other early writers.^[83] Even before the Council of Ephesus, he defended the ever Virgin Mary as the Mother of God, who, because of her virginity, is full of grace.^[84] Likewise, he affirmed that the Virgin Mary "conceived as virgin, gave birth as virgin and stayed virgin forever".^[85]

Natural knowledge and biblical interpretation

Augustine took the view that the Biblical text should not be interpreted as properly literal, but rather as metaphorical, if it contradicts what we know from science and our God-given reason. While each passage of Scripture has a literal sense, this "literal sense" does not always mean that the Scriptures are mere history; at times they are rather an extended metaphor.^[86]

Original sin

See also: Original sin

Portrait by Philippe de Champaigne, 17th century

Augustine taught that Original sin of Adam and Eve was either an act of foolishness (insipientia) followed by pride and disobedience to God or the opposite: pride came first.^[87] The first couple disobeyed God, who had told them not to eat of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:17).^[88] The tree was a symbol of the order of creation.^[89] Self-centeredness made Adam and Eve eat of it, thus failing to acknowledge and respect the world as it was created by God, with its hierarchy of beings and values.^[90] They would not have fallen into pride and lack of wisdom, if Satan hadn't sown into their senses "the root of evil" (radix Mali).^[91] Their nature was wounded by concupiscence or libido, which affected human intelligence and will, as well as affections and desires, including sexual desire.^[92] In terms of metaphysics, concupiscence is not a being but bad quality, the privation of good or a wound.^[93]
Augustine's understanding of the consequences of the original sin and of necessity of the redeeming grace was developed in the struggle against Pelagius and his Pelagian disciples, Caelestius and Julian of Eclanum,^[71] who had been inspired by Rufinus of Syria, a disciple of Theodore of Mopsuestia.^[94] They refused to agree that libido wounded human will and mind, insisting that the human nature was given the power to act, to speak, and to think when God created it. Human nature cannot lose its moral capacity for doing good, but a person is free to act or not to act in a righteous way. Pelagius gave an example of eyes: they have capacity for seeing, but a person can make either good or bad use of it.^[95] Like Jovinian, Pelagians insisted that human affections and desires were not touched by the fall either. Immorality, e.g. fornication, is exclusively a matter of will, i.e. a person does not use natural desires in a proper way. In opposition to that, Augustine pointed out to the apparent disobedience of the flesh to the spirit, and explained it as one of the results of original sin, punishment of Adam and Eve's disobedience to God.^[96]
Augustine had served as a "Hearer" for the Manichaeans for about nine years,^[97] who taught that the original sin was carnal knowledge.^[98] But his struggle to understand the cause of evil in the world started before that, at the age of nineteen.^[99] By malum (evil) he understood most of all concupiscence, which he interpreted as a vice dominating person and causing in men and women moral disorder. A. Trapè insists that Augustine's personal experience cannot be credited for his doctrine about concupiscence. His marriage experience, though Christian marriage celebration was missing, was exemplary, very normal and by no means specifically sad.^[100] As J. Brachtendorf showed, Augustine used Ciceronian Stoic concept of passions, to interpret Paul's doctrine of universal sin and redemption.^[101]
The view that not only human soul but also senses were influenced by the fall of Adam and Eve was prevalent in Augustine's time among the Fathers of the Church.^[102] It is clear that the reason of Augustine's distance towards the affairs of the flesh was different to that of Plotinus, a neo-Platonist^[103] who taught that only through disdain for fleshly desire could one reach the ultimate state of mankind.^[104] Augustine taught the redemption, i.e. transformation and purification, of the body in the resurrection.^[105]

St. Augustine by Peter Paul Rubens

Some authors perceive Augustine's doctrine as directed against human sexuality and attribute his insistence on continence and devotion to God as coming from Augustine's need to reject his own highly sensual nature as described in the Confessions. But in view of his writings it is apparently a misunderstanding.^[106] Augustine taught that human sexuality has been wounded, together with the whole of human nature, and requires redemption of Christ. That healing is a process realized in conjugal acts. The virtue of continence is achieved thanks to the grace of the sacrament of Christian marriage, which becomes therefore a remedium concupiscentiae – remedy of concupiscence.^[107][108] The redemption of human sexuality will be, however, fully accomplished only in the resurrection of the body.^[109]
The sin of Adam is inherited by all human beings. Already in his pre-Pelagian writings, Augustine taught that Original Sin was transmitted by concupiscence,^[110] which he regarded as the passion of both, soul and body,^[111] making humanity a massa damnata (mass of perdition, condemned crowd) and much enfeebling, though not destroying, the freedom of the will.
Augustine's formulation of the doctrine of original sin was confirmed at numerous councils, i.e. Carthage (418), Ephesus (431), Orange (529), Trent (1546) and by popes, i.e. Pope Innocent I (401–417) and Pope Zosimus (417–418). Anselm of Canterbury established in his Cur Deus Homo the definition that was followed by the great Schoolmen, namely that Original Sin is the "privation of the righteousness which every man ought to possess", thus interpreting concupiscence as something more than mere sexual lust, with which some of Augustine's disciples had defined it^[112][113] as later did Luther and Calvin, a doctrine condemned in 1567 by Pope Pius V.^[114]
Augustine taught that some people are predestined by God to salvation by an eternal, sovereign decree which is not based on man's merit or will. The saving grace which God bestows is irresistible and unfailingly results in conversion. God also grants those whom he saves with the gift of perseverance so that none of those whom God has chosen may conceivably fall away.^[71]:44[115]
The Catholic Church considers Augustine's teaching to be consistent with free will.^[116] He often said that any can be saved if they wish.^[116] While God knows who will be saved and who will not, with no possibility that one destined to be lost will be saved, this knowledge represents God's perfect knowledge of how humans will freely choose their destinies.^{[116][unreliable source]}

Sacramental theology

Also in reaction against the Donatists, Augustine developed a distinction between the "regularity" and "validity" of the sacraments. Regular sacraments are performed by clergy of the Catholic Church while sacraments performed by schismatics are considered irregular. Nevertheless, the validity of the sacraments do not depend upon the holiness of the priests who perform them (ex opere operato); therefore, irregular sacraments are still accepted as valid provided they are done in the name of Christ and in the manner prescribed by the Church. On this point Augustine departs from the earlier teaching of Cyprian, who taught that converts from schismatic movements must be re-baptised.^[71] Augustine taught that sacraments administered outside the Catholic Church, though true sacraments, avail nothing. However, he also stated that baptism, while it does not confer any grace when done outside the Church, does confer grace as soon as one is received into the Catholic Church.

St. Augustine in His Study by Vittore Carpaccio, 1502

Augustine upheld the early Christian understanding of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, saying that Christ's statement, "This is my body" referred to the bread he carried in his hands,^[117][118] and that Christians must have faith that the bread and wine are in fact the body and blood of Christ, despite what they see with their eyes.^[119]
Against the Pelagians, Augustine strongly stressed the importance of infant baptism. About the question whether baptism is an absolute necessity for salvation, however, Augustine appears to have refined his beliefs during his lifetime, causing some confusion among later theologians about his position. He said in one of his sermons that only the baptized are saved.^[120] This belief was shared by many early Christians. However, a passage from his City of God, concerning the Apocalypse, may indicate that Augustine did believe in an exception for children born to Christian parents.^[121]

Statements on Jews

Against certain Christian movements, some of which rejected the use of Hebrew Scripture, Augustine countered that God had chosen the Jews as a special people,^[122] and he considered the scattering of Jewish people by the Roman Empire to be a fulfillment of prophecy.^[123] He rejected homicidal attitudes, quoting part of the same prophecy, namely "Slay them not, lest they should at last forget Thy law" (Psalm 59:11). Augustine, who believed Jewish people would be converted to Christianity at "the end of time," argued that God had allowed them to survive their dispersion as a warning to Christians; as such, he argued, they should be permitted to dwell in Christian lands.^[124]

Views on sexuality

For Augustine, the evil of sexual immorality was not in the sexual act itself, but rather in the emotions that typically accompany it. In On Christian Doctrine Augustine contrasts love, which is enjoyment on account of God, and lust, which is not on account of God.^[125] For Augustine, proper love exercises a denial of selfish pleasure and the subjugation of corporeal desire to God. He wrote that the pious virgins raped during the sack of Rome, were innocent because they did not intend to sin.^[126][127]
Augustine's view of sexual feelings as sinful affected his view of women. For example he considered a man’s erection to be sinful, though involuntary,^[128] because it did not take place under his conscious control. His solution was to place controls on women to limit their ability to influence men.^[129]
He believed that the serpent approached Eve because she was less rational and lacked self-control, while Adam's choice to eat was viewed as an act of kindness so that Eve would not be left alone.^[129] Augustine believed sin entered the world because man (the spirit) did not exercise control over woman (the flesh).^[130] Augustine's views on women were not all negative, however. In his Tractates on the Gospel of John, Augustine, commenting on the Samaritan woman from John 4:1–42, uses the woman as a figure of the church.
According to Raming, the authority of the Decretum Gratiani, a collection of Roman Catholic canon law which prohibits women from leading, teaching, or being a witness, rests largely on the views of the early church fathers—one of the most influential being St. Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo.^[131] The laws and traditions founded upon St. Augustine's views of sexuality and women continue to exercise considerable influence over church doctrinal positions regarding the role of women in the church.^[132]

Teaching philosophy

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Saint Augustine in His Study by Sandro Botticelli, 1494, Uffizi Gallery

Augustine is considered an influential figure in the history of education. A work early in Augustine's writings is De Magistro (the Teacher), which contains insights about education. However, his ideas changed as he found better directions or better ways of expressing his ideas. In the last years of his life Saint Augustine wrote his "Retractationes", reviewing his writings and improving specific texts. Henry Chadwick believes an accurate translation of "retractationes" may be "reconsiderations". Reconsiderations can be seen as an overarching theme of the way Saint Augustine learned. Augustine's understanding of the search for understanding/meaning/truth as a restless journey leaves room for doubt, development and change.^[133]
Gary N. McCloskey finds four "encounters of learning" in Augustine's approach to education: Through Transforming Experiences; as a Journey in Search of Understanding/Meaning/Truth; Learning with Others in Community; and Building the Habits (Love) of Learning. His emphasis on the importance of community as a means of learning distinguishes his pedagogy from some others. Augustine believed that dialogue/dialectic/discussion is the best means for learning, and this method should serve as a model for learning encounters between teachers and students. Saint Augustine’s dialogue writings model the need for lively interactive dialogue among learners.^[133]
He introduced the theory of three different categories of students, and instructed teachers to adapt their teaching styles to each student's individual learning style. The three different kinds of students are: the student who has been well-educated by knowledgeable teachers; the student who has had no education; and the student who has had a poor education, but believes himself to be well-educated. If a student has been well educated in a wide variety of subjects, the teacher must be careful not to repeat what they have already learned, but to challenge the student with material which they do not yet know thoroughly. With the student who has had no education, the teacher must be patient, willing to repeat things until the student understands, and sympathetic. Perhaps the most difficult student, however, is the one with an inferior education who believes he understands something when he does not. Augustine stressed the importance of showing this type of student the difference between "having words and having understanding," and of helping the student to remain humble with his acquisition of knowledge.
Augustine introduced the idea of teachers responding positively to the questions they may receive from their students, no matter if the student interrupted his teacher. Augustine also founded the restrained style of teaching. This teaching style ensures the students' full understanding of a concept because the teacher does not bombard the student with too much material; focuses on one topic at a time; helps them discover what they don't understand, rather than moving on too quickly; anticipates questions; and helps them learn to solve difficulties and find solutions to problems. Yet another of Augustine's major contributions to education is his study on the styles of teaching. He claimed there are two basic styles a teacher uses when speaking to the students. The mixed style includes complex and sometimes showy language to help students see the beautiful artistry of the subject they are studying. The grand style is not quite as elegant as the mixed style, but is exciting and heartfelt, with the purpose of igniting the same passion in the students' hearts. Augustine balanced his teaching philosophy with the traditional Bible-based practice of strict discipline.

Works

Main article: Augustine of Hippo bibliography

Saint Augustine painting by Antonio Rodríguez

Augustine was one of the most prolific Latin authors in terms of surviving works, and the list of his works consists of more than one hundred separate titles.^[134] They include apologetic works against the heresies of the Arians, Donatists, Manichaeans and Pelagians; texts on Christian doctrine, notably De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Doctrine); exegetical works such as commentaries on Book of Genesis, the Psalms and Paul's Letter to the Romans; many sermons and letters; and the Retractationes, a review of his earlier works which he wrote near the end of his life. Apart from those, Augustine is probably best known for his Confessions, which is a personal account of his earlier life, and for De civitate dei (The City of God, consisting of 22 books), which he wrote to restore the confidence of his fellow Christians, which was badly shaken by the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410. His On the Trinity, in which he developed what has become known as the 'psychological analogy' of the Trinity, is also among his masterpieces, and arguably one of the greatest theological works of all time. He also wrote On Free Choice Of The Will (De libero arbitrio), addressing why God gives humans free will that can be used for evil.

Influence

Saint Augustine Disputing with the Heretics painting by Vergós Group

Augustine is considered by modern historian Thomas Cahill to be the first medieval man and the last classical man.^[135] In both his philosophical and theological reasoning, he was greatly influenced by Stoicism, Platonism and Neo-platonism, particularly by the work of Plotinus, author of the Enneads, probably through the mediation of Porphyry and Victorinus (as Pierre Hadot has argued). Although he later abandoned Neoplatonism, some ideas are still visible in his early writings.^[136] His early and influential writing on the human will, a central topic in ethics, would become a focus for later philosophers such as Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. In addition, Augustine was influenced by the works of Virgil (known for his teaching on language), Cicero (known for his teaching on argument), and Aristotle (particularly his Rhetoric and Poetics).^{[citation needed]}
Thomas Aquinas was influenced heavily by Augustine. On the topic of original sin, Aquinas proposed a more optimistic view of man than that of Augustine in that his conception leaves to the reason, will, and passions of fallen man their natural powers even after the Fall.^[114] Augustine's doctrine of efficacious grace found eloquent expression in the works of Bernard of Clairvaux; also Reformation theologians such as Martin Luther and John Calvin would look back to him as their inspiration.^{[citation needed]}
Philosopher Bertrand Russell was impressed by Augustine's meditation on the nature of time in the Confessions, comparing it to Kant's subjective theory of time, which has been widely accepted since Kant.^[137] Catholic theologians generally subscribe to Augustine's belief that God exists outside of time in the "eternal present"; that time only exists within the created universe because only in space is time discernible through motion and change. His meditations on the nature of time are closely linked to his consideration of the human ability of memory. Frances Yates in her 1966 studyThe Art of Memory argues that a brief passage of the Confessions, 10.8.12, in which Augustine writes of walking up a flight of stairs and entering the vast fields of memory^[138] clearly indicates that the ancient Romans were aware of how to use explicit spatial and architectural metaphors as a mnemonic technique for organizing large amounts of information.

Saint Augustine Meditates on the Trinity when the Child Jesus Appears before him by Vergos Group

Augustine's philosophical method, especially demonstrated in his Confessions, had continuing influence on Continental philosophy throughout the 20th century. His descriptive approach to intentionality, memory, and language as these phenomena are experienced within consciousness and time anticipated and inspired the insights of modern phenomenology and hermeneutics.^[139] Edmund Husserl writes: "The analysis of time-consciousness is an age-old crux of descriptive psychology and theory of knowledge. The first thinker to be deeply sensitive to the immense difficulties to be found here was Augustine, who laboured almost to despair over this problem."^[140] Martin Heidegger refers to Augustine's descriptive philosophy at several junctures in his influential work Being and Time.^[141] Hannah Arendt began her philosophical writing with a dissertation on Augustine's concept of love, Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin (1929): "The young Arendt attempted to show that the philosophical basis for vita socialis in Augustine can be understood as residing in neighbourly love, grounded in his understanding of the common origin of humanity."^[142] Jean Bethke Elshtain in Augustine and the Limits of Politics finds likeness between Augustine and Arendt in their concepts of evil: "Augustine did not see evil as glamorously demonic but rather as absence of good, something which paradoxically is really nothing. Arendt ... envisioned even the extreme evil which produced the Holocaust as merely banal [in Eichmann in Jerusalem]."^[143] Augustine's philosophical legacy continues to influence contemporary critical theory through the contributions and inheritors of these 20th-century figures.
According to Leo Ruickbie, Augustine's arguments against magic, differentiating it from miracle, were crucial in the early Church's fight against paganism and became a central thesis in the later denunciation of witches and witchcraft. According to Professor Deepak Lal, Augustine's vision of the heavenly city has influenced the secular projects and traditions of the Enlightenment, Marxism, Freudianism and Eco-fundamentalism.^[144] Post-Marxist philosophers Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt rely heavily on Augustine's thought, particularly The City of God, in their book of political-philosophy "Empire."
While in his pre-Pelagian writings Augustine taught that Adam's guilt as transmitted to his descendants much enfeebles, though does not destroy, the freedom of their will, Protestant reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin affirmed that Original Sin completely destroyed liberty (see total depravity).^[114]
Augustine has influenced many modern-day theologians and authors such as John Piper. Hannah Arendt, an influential 20th century political theorist, wrote her doctoral dissertation in philosophy on St. Augustine, and continued to rely on his thought throughout her career. Ludwig Wittgenstein extensively quotes Augustine in Philosophical Investigations for his approach to language, both admiringly, and as a sparring partner to develop his own ideas, including an extensive opening passage from the Confessions. In his autobiographical book Milestones, Pope Benedict XVI, claims St. Augustine as one of the deepest influences in his thought.

In popular culture

Augustine was played by Dary Berkani in the 1972 television movie Augustine of Hippo. He was also played by Franco Nero in the 2010 mini-series Augustine: The Decline of the Roman Empire and the 2012 feature film Restless Heart: The Confessions of Saint Augustine.^[145] The modern day name links to the Agostinelli Family.^[146]
Jostein Gaarder's philosophical novel Vita Brevis is presented as a translation of a manuscript written by Augustine's concubine after he became the Bishop of Hippo. Augustine also appears in the novel The Dalkey Archive by Flann O'Brian (the pen name of Irish Author Brian O'Nolan). He is summoned to an underwater cavern by an absurd scientist called De Selby; together they discuss life in Heaven and the characters of other Saints. Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s novel A Canticle for Leibowitz cites St. Augustine as possibly positing the first version of a theory of evolution.^[147]
Bob Dylan recorded a song entitled "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine" on his album John Wesley Harding. Pop artist Sting pays an homage of sorts to Augustine's struggles with lust with the song "Saint Augustine in Hell" which appears on the singer's 1993 album Ten Summoner's Tales. Christian Rock artist Disciple named their fourth track on their 2010 release Horseshoes and Handgrenades after Augustine, called: "The Ballad of St. Augustine". The song "St. Augustine" appears on Girlyman's album, Supernova. American rock band Moe named and referenced Augustine of Hippo in their song entitled, "St. Augustine."

See also

Saints portal

• Augustinian hypothesis
• Augustinian Studies
• Augustinian theodicy
• Augustinians
• Collegium Augustinianum
• Constantinian shift
• Ecclesiology
• Filioque clause
• Free will
• Incurvatus in se
• Just War
• Mar Ammo
• Order of Saint Augustine
• Original sin
• Otium
• Pelagianism
• Philosophy of history
• Philosophy of religion
• Predestination
• Problem of evil
• Scholasticism
• Truth
• Augustinian Institute

References

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3. Jump up ^ The nomen Aurelius is virtually meaningless, signifying little more than Roman citizenship (see: Salway, Benet (1994). "What's in a Name? A Survey of Roman Onomastic Practice from c. 700 B.C. to A.D. 700". The Journal of Roman Studies (Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies) 84: 124–45. doi:10.2307/300873. ISSN 0075-4358. JSTOR 300873.).
4. Jump up ^ The American Heritage College Dictionary. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1997. p. 91. ISBN 0-395-66917-0.
5. Jump up ^ Jerome wrote to Augustine in 418: "You are known throughout the world; Catholics honour and esteem you as the one who has established anew the ancient Faith" (conditor antiquae rursum fidei). Cf. Epistola 195; TeSelle, Eugene (1970). Augustine the Theologian. London. p. 343. ISBN 0-223-97728-4. March 2002 edition: ISBN 1-57910-918-7.
6. Jump up ^ Cross, Ch. Platonism
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14. Jump up ^ "Blessed" here does not mean that he is less than a saint, but is a title bestowed upon him as a sign of respect. "Blessed Augustine of Hippo: His Place in the Orthodox Church: A Corrective Compilation". Orthodox Tradition XIV (4): 33–35. Archived from the original on 10 July 2007. Retrieved 28 June 2007.
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25. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, 3:3
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29. Jump up ^ A'Becket, John. "Adeodatus". Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20 April 2012. "Seeing the wonderful intelligence of his son, Augustine felt a sort of awe. "The grandeur of his mind filled me with a kind of terror," he says himself (De beata vita, c. vi)."
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37. Jump up ^ Possidius, v. Aug. 3.1
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53. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, Enarrationes in psalmos, 143, 6.
54. Jump up ^ CCL 40, 2077 [46] – 2078 [74]; 46, 234–35.
55. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, De utilitate ieiunii, 4,4–5.
56. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, De quantitate animae 1.2; 5.9.
57. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, De quantitate animae 13.12: Substantia quaedam rationis particeps, regendo corpori accomodata.
58. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, On the free will (De libero arbitrio) 2.3.7–6.13.
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60. Jump up ^ the Athenian, Athenagoras. "A Plea for the Christians". New advent.
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62. Jump up ^ "On the Soul and Its Origin". Fathers. New advent.
63. Jump up ^ Van Der Meer, F (1961). Augustine the Bishop. The Life and Work of the Father of the Church. London – Newy York. p. 60.
64. Jump up ^ Bonner, G (1986). St. Augustine of Hippo. Life and Controversies. Norwich: The Canterbury Press. p. 63. ISBN 0-86078-203-4.
65. Jump up ^ Testard, M (1958). Saint Augustin et Cicéron, I. Cicéron dans la formation et l'oeuvre de saint Augustin (in French). Paris: Études Augustiniennes. pp. 100–6.
66. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, Confessions 5,7,12; 7,6
67. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World's Past, The City of God, Book 12: Chapt. 10 [419].
68. Jump up ^ Teske, Roland J (1999). "Genesi ad litteram liber imperfectus, De". In Fitzgerald, Allan D. Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia. Wm B Eerdmans. pp. 377–78. ISBN 978-0-8028-3843-8.
69. Jump up ^ On the Merits, 1.2; City of God, 13:1; Enchiridion, 104
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72. Jump up ^ Blomberg, Craig L. (2006). From Pentecost to Patmos. Apollos. p. 519. ISBN 0805432485.
73. ^ Jump up to: ^{a b} Cross
74. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, Enchiridion, 110
75. Jump up ^ Matthews, Gareth B. (1992). Thought's ego in Augustine and Descartes. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801427754.
76. Jump up ^ King, Peter; Nathan Ballantyne (2009). "Augustine on gTestimony". Canadian Journal of Philosophy 39 (2): 195. doi:10.1353/cjp.0.0045.
77. Jump up ^ A Time For War? Christianity Today (2001-01-09). Retrieved on 2013-04-28.
78. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo. Crusades-encyclopedia.com. Retrieved on 2013-04-28.
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81. Jump up ^ The Just War. Catholiceducation.org. Retrieved on 2013-04-28.
82. Jump up ^ Gonzalez, Justo L. (1984). The Story of Christianity. San Francisco: Harper. ISBN 006185588X.
83. Jump up ^ O Stegmüller, in Marienkunde, 455
84. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, De Sancta Virginitate, 6,6, 191.
85. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, De Sancta Virginitate, 18
86. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, De Genesi ad literam 1:19–20, Chapt. 19 [408], De Genesi ad literam, 2:9
87. Jump up ^ He explained to Julian of Eclanum that it was a most subtle job to discern what came first: Sed si disputatione subtilissima et elimatissima opus est, ut sciamus utrum primos homines insipientia superbos, an insipientes superbia fecerit. (Contra Julianum, V, 4.18; PL 44, 795)
88. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, On the Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram), VIII, 6:12, vol. 1, p. 192-3 and 12:28, vol. 2, p. 219-20, trans. John Hammond Taylor SJ;BA 49,28 and 50–52; PL 34, 377; cf. idem, De Trinitate, XII, 12.17; CCL 50, 371–372 [v. 26–31;1–36]; De natura boni 34–35; CSEL 25, 872; PL 42, 551–572
89. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, On the Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram), VIII, 4.8; BA 49, 20
90. Jump up ^ Augustine explained it in this way: "Why therefore is it enjoined upon mind, that it should know itself? I suppose, in order that, it may consider itself, and live according to its own nature; that is, seek to be regulated according to its own nature, viz., under Him to whom it ought to be subject, and above those things to which it is to be preferred; under Him by whom it ought to be ruled, above those things which it ought to rule. For it does many things through vicious desire, as though in forgetfulness of itself. For it sees some things intrinsically excellent, in that more excellent nature which is God: and whereas it ought to remain steadfast that it may enjoy them, it is turned away from Him, by wishing to appropriate those things to itself, and not to be like to Him by His gift, but to be what He is by its own, and it begins to move and slip gradually down into less and less, which it thinks to be more and more." ("On the Trinity" (De Trinitate), 5:7; CCL 50, 320 [1–12])
91. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, Nisi radicem mali humanus tunc reciperet sensus ("Contra Julianum", I, 9.42; PL 44, 670)
92. Jump up ^ In one of Augustine's late works, Retractationes, he made a significant remark indicating the way he understood difference between spiritual, moral libido and the sexual desire: "Libido is not good and righteous use of the libido" ("libido non est bonus et rectus usus libidinis"). See the whole passage: Dixi etiam quodam loco: «Quod enim est cibus ad salutem hominis, hoc est concubitus ad salutem generis, et utrumque non est sine delectatione carnali, quae tamen modificata et temperantia refrenante in usum naturalem redacta, libido esse non potest». Quod ideo dictum est, quoniam "libido non est bonus et rectus usus libidinis". Sicut enim malum est male uti bonis, ita bonum bene uti malis. De qua re alias, maxime contra novos haereticos Pelagianos, diligentius disputavi. Cf. De bono coniugali, 16.18; PL 40, 385; De nuptiis et concupiscentia, II, 21.36; PL 44, 443; Contra Iulianum, III, 7.16; PL 44, 710; ibid., V, 16.60; PL 44, 817. See also Idem (1983). Le mariage chrétien dans l'oeuvre de Saint Augustin. Une théologie baptismale de la vie conjugale. Paris: Études Augustiniennes. p. 97.
93. Jump up ^ Non substantialiter manere concupiscentiam, sicut corpus aliquod aut spiritum; sed esse affectionem quamdam malae qualitatis, sicut est languor. (De nuptiis et concupiscentia, I, 25. 28; PL 44, 430; cf. Contra Julianum, VI, 18.53; PL 44, 854; ibid. VI, 19.58; PL 44, 857; ibid., II, 10.33; PL 44, 697; Contra Secundinum Manichaeum, 15; PL 42, 590.
94. Jump up ^ Marius Mercator Lib. subnot.in verb. Iul. Praef.,2,3; PL 48,111 /v.5-13/; Bonner, Gerald. Rufinus of Syria and African Pelagianism. pp. 35(X). in: Idem (1987). God's Decree and Man's Destiny. London: Variorum Reprints. pp. 31–47 (X). ISBN 0-86078-203-4.
95. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, De gratia Christi et de peccato originali, I, 15.16; CSEL 42, 138 [v.24–29]; Ibid., I,4.5; CSEL 42, 128 [v.15–23]. See Bonner, G. (1986). St. Augustine of Hippo. Life and Controversies. Norwich: The Canterbury Press. pp. 355–356. ISBN 0-86078-203-4.
96. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.31–32
97. Jump up ^ Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. ISBN 0-520-00186-9, 35
98. Jump up ^ The Manichaean Version of Genesis 2–4. Translated from the Arabic text of Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist, as reproduced by G. Flügel in Mani: Seine Lehre und seine Schriften (Leipzig, 1862; reprinted, Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag, 1969) 58.11–61.13.
99. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, De libero arbitrio 1,9,1.
100. Jump up ^ Trapè, A. S. Agostino: Introduzione alla Dottrina della Grazia. I – Natura e Grazia. pp. 113–114.
101. Jump up ^ Brachtendorf, J. (1997). Cicero and Augustine on the Passions. p. 307. hdl:2042/23075.
102. Jump up ^ See. Sfameni Gasparro, G. (2001). Enkrateia e Antropologia. Le motivazioni protologiche della continenza e della verginità nel christianesimo del primi secoli e nello gnosticismo. Studia Ephemeridis «Augustinianum» 20. Rome. pp. 250–251.; Somers, H. "Image de Dieu. Les sources de l'exégèse augustinienne". Revue des Études Augustiniennes 7 (1961): 115. ISSN 0035-2012. hdl:2042/712.. Cf. John Chrysostome, Περι παρθενίας (De Sancta Virginitate), XIV, 6; SCh 125, 142–145; Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, 17; SCh 6, 164–165 and On Virginity, 12.2; SCh 119, 402 [17–20]. Cf. Augustine of Hippo, On the Good of Marriage, 2.2; PL 40, 374.
103. Jump up ^ Although Augustine praises him in the Confessions, 8.2., it is widely acknowledged that Augustine's attitude towards that pagan philosophy was very much of a Christian apostle, as T.E. Clarke SJ writes: Towards Neoplatonism there was throughout his life a decidedly ambivalent attitude; one must expect both agreement and sharp dissent, derivation but also repudiation. In the matter which concerns us here, the agreement with Neoplatonism (and with the Platonic tradition in general) centers on two related notions: immutability as primary characteristic of divinity, and likeness to divinity as the primary vocation of the soul. The disagreement chiefly concerned, as we have said, two related and central Christian dogmas: the Incarnation of the Son of God and the resurrection of the flesh. Clarke, SJ, T. E. "St. Augustine and Cosmic Redemption". Theological Studies 19 (1958): 151. Cf. É. Schmitt's chapter 2: L'idéologie hellénique et la conception augustinienne de réalités charnelles in: Idem (1983). Le mariage chrétien dans l'oeuvre de Saint Augustin. Une théologie baptismale de la vie conjugale. Paris: Études Augustiniennes. pp. 108–123. O'Meara, J.J. (1954). The Young Augustine: The Growth of St. Augustine's Mind up to His Conversion. London. pp. 143–151 and 195f. Madec, G. Le "platonisme" des Pères. p. 42. in Idem (1994). Petites Études Augustiniennes. «Antiquité» 142. Paris: Collection d'Études Augustiniennes. pp. 27–50. Thomas Aq. STh I q84 a5; Augustine of Hippo, City of God (De Civitate Dei), VIII, 5; CCL 47, 221 [3–4].
104. Jump up ^ Gerson, Lloyd P. Plotinus. New York, NY: Routledge, 1994. 203
105. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, "Enarrations on the Psalms" (Enarrationes in psalmos), 143:6; CCL 40, 2077 [46] – 2078 [74]; On the Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad Litteram), 9:6:11, trans. John Hammond Taylor SJ, vol. 2, p. 76-77; PL 34, 397.
106. Jump up ^ Gerald Bonner's comment explains a little bit why there are so many authors who write false things about Augustine's views: It is, of course, always easier to oppose and denounce than to understand. See Bonner, G. (1986). St. Augustine of Hippo. Life and Controversies. Norwich: The Canterbury Press. p. 312. ISBN 0-86078-203-4.
107. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, De continentia, 12.27; PL 40, 368; Ibid., 13.28; PL 40, 369; Contra Julianum, III, 15.29, PL 44, 717; Ibid., III, 21.42, PL 44, 724.
108. Jump up ^ "A Postscript to the Remedium Concupiscentiae". The Thomist 70: 481–536. 2006.
109. Jump up ^ Merits and Remission of Sin, and Infant Baptism (De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptismo parvulorum), I, 6.6; PL 44, 112–113; cf. On the Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram) 9:6:11, trans. John Hammond Taylor SJ, vol. 2, pp. 76–77; PL 34, 397.
110. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, Imperfectum Opus contra Iulianum, II, 218
111. Jump up ^ In 393 or 394 he commented: Moreover, if unbelief is fornication, and idolatry unbelief, and covetousness idolatry, it is not to be doubted that covetousness also is fornication. Who, then, in that case can rightly separate any unlawful lust whatever from the category of fornication, if covetousness is fornication? And from this we perceive, that because of unlawful lusts, not only those of which one is guilty in acts of uncleanness with another's husband or wife, but any unlawful lusts whatever, which cause the soul making a bad use of the body to wander from the law of God, and to be ruinously and basely corrupted, a man may, without crime, put away his wife, and a wife her husband, because the Lord makes the cause of fornication an exception; which fornication, in accordance with the above considerations, we are compelled to understand as being general and universal ("On the Sermon on the Mount", De sermone Domini in monte, 1:16:46; CCL 35, 52)
112. Jump up ^ Southern, R.W. (1953). The Making of the Middle Ages. London. pp. 234–7.
113. Jump up ^ Bonner, G. (1986). St. Augustine of Hippo. Life and Controversies. Norwich: The Canterbury Press. p. 371. ISBN 0-86078-203-4.
114. ^ Jump up to: ^{a b c} Cross, Ch. "Original Sin"
115. Jump up ^ Hägglund, Bengt (2007) [1968]. Teologins historia [History of Theology] (in German). Translated by Gene J. Lund (4th rev. ed.). St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House. pp. 139–140. ISBN 978-0758613486.
116. ^ Jump up to: ^{a b c} Portalié, Eugène. "Teaching of St. Augustine of Hippo" The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company (1907). Retrieved 30 September 2011
117. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, Explanations of the Psalms 33:1:10 [405]
118. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, Sermons 227 [411]
119. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, Sermons 272
120. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, A Sermon to Catechumens on the Creed, Paragraph 16
121. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, City of God, Book 20, Chapter 8
122. Jump up ^ Diarmaid MacCulloch. The Reformation: A History (Penguin Group, 2005) p 8.
123. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, City of God, book 18, chapter 46.
124. Jump up ^ Edwards, J. (1999) The Spanish Inquisition, Stroud, pp. 33–35, ISBN 0752417703.
125. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine, 3.37
126. Jump up ^ Russell, Bertrand. (1945) A History of Western Philosophy, Simon & Schuster. p. 356.
127. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, City of God, Book I, Ch. 16, 18.
128. Jump up ^ Augustine of Hippo, City of God, 14.17
129. ^ Jump up to: ^{a b} Reuther, R.R. (2007). "Augustine: sexuality gender and women", pp. 47–68 in J.C. Stark (Ed.), Feminist interpretations of Augustine, University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, ISBN 027103257X.
130. Jump up ^ Edwards, B. (2011) Let My People Go: A Call to End the Oppression of Women in the Church, Charleston, SC: Createspace, ISBN 1466401117.
131. Jump up ^ Raming, I. (2004). A history of women and ordination volume two: The priestly office of women – God’s gift to a renewed church. (B. Cooke & G. Macy, Trans.). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press Inc. pp. 29–30, ISBN 0810848503.
132. Jump up ^ Edwards, B. (2011). "Let My People Go: A Call to End the Oppression of Women in the Church." Charleston, SC: Createspace, ISBN 1466401117.
133. ^ Jump up to: ^{a b} McCloskey, Gary N. (April 2008) Encounters of Learning: Saint Augustine on Education, Saint Augustine Institute for Learning and Teaching, Merrimack College.
134. Jump up ^ Wright, F.A. and Sinclair, T.A. (1931) A History of Later Latin Literature, Dawsons of Pall Mall, London, pp. 56 ff.
135. Jump up ^ Cahill, Thomas How the Irish Saved Civilization Ch. 2.
136. Jump up ^ Bertrand Russell History of western Philosophy Book II Chapter IV
137. Jump up ^ History of Western Philosophy, 1946, reprinted Unwin Paperbacks 1979, pp. 352–353.
138. Jump up ^ Confessiones Liber X: commentary on 10.8.12 (in Latin)
139. Jump up ^ de Paulo, Craig J. N. (2006). The Influence of Augustine on Heidegger: The Emergence of an Augustinian Phenomenology. The Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 0773456899.
140. Jump up ^ Husserl, Edmund (1964) Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness. Tr. James S. Churchill. Bloomington: Indiana UP, p. 21.
141. Jump up ^ For example, Heidegger's articulations of how "Being-in-the-world" is described through thinking about seeing: "The remarkable priority of 'seeing' was noticed particularly by Augustine, in connection with his Interpretation of concupiscentia." Heidegger then quotes theConfessions: "Seeing belongs properly to the eyes. But we even use this word 'seeing' for the other senses when we devote them to cognizing... We not only say, 'See how that shines', ... 'but we even say, 'See how that sounds'". Being and Time, Trs. Macquarrie & Robinson. New York: Harpers, 1964, p. 171.
142. Jump up ^ Chiba, Shin (1995). "Hannah Arendt on Love and the Political: Love, Friendship, and Citizenship". The Review of Politics 57 (3): 505–535 (507). doi:10.1017/S0034670500019720. JSTOR 1408599.
143. Jump up ^ Tinder, Glenn; Elshtain, Jean Bethke (1997). "Augustine and the Limits of Politics, by Jean Bethke Elshtain". The American Political Science Review 91 (2): 432–433. doi:10.2307/2952372.
144. Jump up ^ Lal, D. (March 2002) Morality and Capitalism: Learning from the Past. Working Paper Number 812, Department of Economics, University of California, Los Angeles.
145. Jump up ^ Restless Heart. Restlessheartfilm.com. Retrieved on 2013-04-28.
146. Jump up ^ AGOSTINELLI Family Crest / AGOSTINELLI Coat of Arms. 4crests.com (2013-04-19). Retrieved on 2013-04-28.
147. Jump up ^ Miller, Walter M., Jr. (1959) A Canticle for Leibowitz, p. 209.

Bibliography

• Cross, Frank L.; Livingstone, Elizabeth, eds. (2005). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280290-9.
• Weiskotten, Herbert T. (2008). The Life of Saint Augustine: A Translation of the Sancti Augustini Vita by Possidius, Bishop of Calama. Merchantville, NJ: Evolution Publishing. ISBN 1-889758-90-6.

Further reading

• Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation. New York: Newman Press. 1978.
• Augustine, Saint (1974). Vernon Joseph Bourke, ed. The Essential Augustine (2nd ed.). Indianapolis: Hackett.
• Ayres, Lewis (2010). Augustine and the Trinity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-83886-3.
• Bourke, Vernon Joseph (1945). Augustine's Quest of Wisdom. Milwaukee: Bruce.
• Bourke, Vernon Joseph (1984). Wisdom From St. Augustine. Houston: Center for Thomistic Studies.
• Brachtendorf J. "Cicero and Augustine on the Passions". Revue des Études Augustiniennes 43 (1997): 289–308. hdl:2042/23075.
• Brown, Peter (1967). Augustine of Hippo. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-00186-9.
• Burke, Cormac (1990). "St. Augustine and Conjugal Sexuality". Communio IV (17): 545–565.
• Burnaby, John (1938). Amor Dei: A Study of the Religion of St. Augustine. The Canterbury Press Norwich. ISBN 1-85311-022-1.
• Clark, Mary T. (1994). Augustine. Geoffrey Chapman. ISBN 978-0-225-66681-6.
• Deane, Herbert A. (1963). The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine. New York: Columbia University Press.
• de Paulo, Craig J. N. (2011). Augustinian Just War Theory and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: Confessions, Contentions and the Lust for Power. Peter Lang. ISBN 978-1-4331-1232-4.
• Doull, James A. (1979). "Augustinian Trinitarianism and Existential Theology". Dionysius III: 111–159.
• Doull, James A. (1988). "What is Augustinian "Sapientia"?". Dionysius XII: 61–67.
• Fitzgerald, Allan D., O.S.A., General Editor (1999). Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. ISBN 0-8028-3843-X.
• Gilson, Etienne (1960). The Christian Philosophy of St. Augustine. L. E. M. Lynch, trans. New York: Random House.
• Green, Bradley G. Colin Gunton and the Failure of Augustine: The Theology of Colin Gunton in the Light of Augustine, James Clarke and Co. (2012), ISBN 9780227680056
• Hollingworth, Miles (2009). Saint Augustine of Hippo: an Intellectual Biography. Bloomsbury. * Received a Jerwood Award.
• Lawless, George P. (1987). Augustine of Hippo and His Monastic Rule. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• LeMoine, Fannie; Kleinhenz, Christopher, eds. (1994). Saint Augustine the Bishop: A Book of Essays. Garland Medieval Casebooks 9. New York: Garland.
• Lubin, Augustino (1659). Orbis Augustinianus sive conventuum ordinis eremitarum Sancti Augustini – chorographica et topographica descriptio. Paris.
• Mackey, Louis (2011). Faith Order Understanding: Natural Theology in the Augustinian Tradition. Totonto: PIMS. ISBN 978-0-88844-421-9.
• Markus, R. A., ed. (1972). Augustine: A Collection of Critical Essays. Garden City, NY: Anchor.
• Matthews, Gareth B. (2005). Augustine. Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-23348-2.
• Mayer, Cornelius P. (ed.). Augustinus-Lexikon. Basel: Schwabe AG.
• Miles, Margaret R. Augustine and the Fundamentalist's Daughter, The Lutterworth Press (2012), ISBN 9780718892623
• Nash, Ronald H (1969). The Light of the Mind: St Augustine's Theory of Knowledge. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
• Nelson, John Charles (1973). "Platonism in the Renaissance". In Wiener, Philip. Dictionary of the History of Ideas 3. New York: Scribner. pp. 510–15 (vol. 3). ISBN 0-684-13293-1. "(...) Saint Augustine asserted that Neo-Platonism possessed all spiritual truths except that of the Incarnation. (...) "
• O'Daly, Gerard (1987). Augustine's Philosophy of the Mind. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• O'Donnell, James (2005). Augustine: A New Biography. New York: ECCO. ISBN 0-06-053537-7.
• Pagels, Elaine (1989). Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity. Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-72232-7.
• Plumer, Eric Antone, (2003). Augustine's Commentary on Galatians. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-924439-1.
• Pollman, Karla (2007). Saint Augustine the Algerian. Göttingen: Edition Ruprecht. ISBN 3-89744-209-4.
• Pottier, René (2006). Saint Augustin le Berbère (in French). Fernand Lanore. ISBN 2-85157-282-2.
• Règle de St. Augustin pour les religieuses de son ordre; et Constitutions de la Congrégation des Religieuses du Verbe-Incarné et du Saint-Sacrament (Lyon: Chez Pierre Guillimin, 1662), pp. 28–29. Cf. later edition published at Lyon (Chez Briday, Libraire,1962), pp. 22–24. English edition, (New York: Schwartz, Kirwin, and Fauss, 1893), pp. 33–35.
• Starnes, Colin (1990). Augustine's Conversion: A Guide to the Arguments of Confessions I-IX. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press.
• Tanquerey, Adolphe (2001). The Spiritual Life: A Treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Theology. Rockford, IL: Tan Books & Publishers. pp. 37). ISBN 0-89555-659-6.
• Trapè, A. (1990). S. Agostino: Introduzione alla Dottrina della Grazia. Collana di Studi Agostiniani 4. I – Natura e Grazia. Rome: Città Nuova. p. 422. ISBN 88-311-3402-7.
• von Heyking, John (2001). Augustine and Politics as Longing in the World. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. ISBN 0-8262-1349-9.
• Woo, B. Hoon (2013). "Augustine’s Hermeneutics and Homiletics in De doctrina christiana". Journal of Christian Philosophy 17: 97–117.
• Zumkeller O.S.A., Adolar (1986). Augustine's Ideal of the Religious Life. New York: Fordham University Press. ISBN 0-8232-1105-3.
• Zumkeller O.S.A., Adolar (1987). Augustine's Rule. Villanova: Augustinian Press. ISBN 0-941491-06-4.

External links

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General

• Augustine entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Augustine’s Political and Social Philosophy entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• "St. Augustine, Bishop and Confessor, Doctor of the Church", Butler's Lives of the Saints
• The Life and Writings of St. Augustine of Hippo: Bishop & Doctor of the Christian Church
• Augustine of Hippo edited by James J. O'Donnell – texts, translations, introductions, commentaries, etc.
• Augustine's theory of knowledge
• St. Augustine page at Christian Iconography
• "The Life of St. Austin, or Augustine, Doctor" from the Caxton translation of the Golden Legend
• David Lindsay: Saint Augustine – Doctor Gratiae
• St. Augustine - A Male Chauvinist? [1], Fr. Edmund Hill, OP. Talk given to the Robert Hugh Benson Grad

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Unless otherwise indicated, this biographical sketch was written by James E. Kiefer and any comments about its content should be directed to him. The Biographical Sketches home page has more information.