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  Augustine: Philosopher and SaintLong before he was declared a saint by the Catholic Church, Saint Augustine gained profound influence as a Church Father and a Christian philosopher who defended the doctrine of the Trinity, defined religious grace, and delved into the inner relationship between God and soul. Today, Augustine is recognizable even to non-Christians as the most important Christian writer outside of the Bible. Yet Augustine was also a rhetorician trained in the Roman way whose life and discovery of his calling made for one of the most fascinating stories in the history of religious philosophy. What follows is more detail about the life of this very influential Doctor of the Church. According to his biographers, Augustine was born into a middle-class family, in 354AD, in the North African city of Tagaste. His father, Patricius, was a pagan who abused his Christian mother (Saint Monica) for sport. And as luck would have it, his paternal grandmother was a jealous yenta, who added to the tension in the family. Augustine also had one brother, Navigius, and a sister, who died a nun. As a child, Augustine was instructed in the Christian religion and taught to pray by his mother. At one point he became dangerously ill and asked to be baptized. As his mother prepared for the baptism, Augustine recuperated and the baptism was canceled. Of Augustine's childhood we know only what he related in his memoirs. He depicted himself as an ordinary child, good at lessons but not fond of school, eager to win the approval of his elders but prone to trivial acts of rebellion, quick to form close relationships but not always able to foresee their consequences. His parents were unable to pay for his education, so with monetary help from an affluent family friend, they managed to send him to a university in Madaura. After a time, he went on to Carthage, where he applied himself to his studies with intellectual élan and developed into a superb rhetorician. This vain and ambitious young man also took time out to enjoy all the excesses available, both carnal and material-and there were many; as he recorded in his Confessions: "Give me chastity and continence, but not just now." For fifteen years he took up with a Carthaginian woman who delivered to him a son out of wedlock. Inspired by the Roman orator and statesman, Marcus Cicero, Augustine became an earnest seeker of truth. He experimented with several philosophical systems until, in Milan, he met and was influenced by its Bishop, Saint Ambrose, the most distinguished ecclesiastic in Italy. Augustine studied the sermons of Saint Ambrose, not so much with an expectation of profiting from them but to gratify his curiosity and to enjoy their eloquence. The sermons led him to readings in the New Testament and to the writings of Saint Paul. Subsequently, Augustine decided to embrace Christianity. Along with his son, he was baptized on Easter Eve in 387AD, by Saint Ambrose, much to the joy of his mother who took his baptism to be the answer to her prayers. (If there was ever a saint whose knees had to be heavily calloused from constant prayer, it had to be Saint Monica, the mother of Augustine, who attributed the conversion of her son to her prayers and to her conversion of an abusive pagan husband and her bitterly jealous mother-in-law.) When his mother died in Ostia, Augustine returned to North Africa where he was ordained, in 391AD, as an assistant to the Bishop of Hippo. When the Bishop died, Augustine succeeded him and remained the Bishop of Hippo until his death 35 years later. Augustine established a monastery of sorts at his house, where he required priests, deacons and sub deacons to renounce property, following the mode of life in the early Church as instituted by the Apostles. He also founded a community of religious women, and, on the death of his sister, the first "abbess," he addressed a letter on the general principles of the religious life. The letter was known as the Rule of Saint Augustine. Augustine soon took on the role of defender of the Catholic Church against several heresies. He challenged the Manichean Heresy, a Persians dualistic philosophy then making the rounds; he also engaged in two great theological conflicts. One with the Donatists, a sect that held that the sacraments were invalid unless administered by sinless ecclesiastics; the other conflict was with the Pelagians who denied the doctrine of original sin. Augustine developed his doctrines of original sin and divine grace, divine sovereignty and predestination. Roman Catholic and Protestant theology alike are largely based on his doctrines. John Calvin and Martin Luther, leaders of the protest reformation were both close students of Augustine Augustine became a powerful advocate for orthodoxy and of the episcopacy as the sole means for the dispensing of saving grace. He was an active mind engaged in the practical concerns of the churches he served. He was seen as a bridge between the ancient and medieval worlds. He died at Hippo, in 430AD. Among his many writings were Confessions, which exposed his early life and conversion, and the City of God, his great Christian apologia. How interesting it was for me to re-read this article several times and note the development of this brilliant (and for a time) dissolute youth, who was converted through the persistence of his mother, Saint Monica, and who became one of the most glorious champions of Catholic orthodoxy in an age of theological turmoil. He will always hold a place among the Fathers and Doctors of the Church-truly another Saint Paul among the Apostles. Clem can be reached at DeAmicis@pacbell.net Italian Catholic Federation, 8393 Capwell Drive, Suite 110, Oakland CA 94621 tel: 888/ICF-1924; 510/633-9058; fax: 510/633-9758; Email: info@icf.org Website designed by HYPERSPHERE |