Saint Augustine (354-430)

1
Saint Augustine (354-430)

• Born in Tagaste, North Africa, son of a Roman
  citizen and a Christian woman, Monica.
• Received a classical education in Carthage
• 383 - Professor of rhetoric in Milan
• Manichean
• Converted to Christianity by Ambrose in Milan,
  baptized in 387
• Abandoned concubine and son
• 391 Designated as priest
• 395 Bishop of Hippo.
• Died in 430.
• The City of God (431) http//www.ccel.org/fathers
  /NPNF1-02/
• Confessions http//calvarychapel.com/library/augu
  stine/text/confessions.htm

2
Organizer of the Christian Orthodoxy

• Catholic (Universal)
• Theory and practice of Dogma
• Against Paganism
• Against Heresy (concerned with deviation)
  Manicheans, Donatists
• Love (love of self vs. love of God)
• The heavenly city vs. the earthly city
• Struggle between Good and Evil (Self)
• Neoplatonic influence (justice peace order, in
  this case between man and God)
• Challenge finding the right way of life for
  Christians

3
Kingdoms

• Justice being taken away, then, what are
  kingdoms but great robberies? For what are
  robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? (186)

4
The Two Cities

• Love of God
• Glory of God
• Charity
• Princes and subjects serve one another in love
• Holy wisdom
• Eternal
• Inhabited by God, angels, and those who live
  according to God

• Love of self
• Glory of men
• Cupidity
• Love of ruling
• Human wisdom
• Destined to perish
• Inhabited by those who live according to man

5
Peace Order

• The peace of all things is the tranquility of
  order. Order is the distribution which allots
  things equal and unequal, each to its own place.
  (690)
• if there is no man who does not wish to be
  joyful, neither is there any one who does not
  wish to have peace.()And hence it is obvious
  that peace is the end sought for by war. (191)
  (687)

6
House, City, World

• it follows plainly enough that domestic peace
  has a relation to civic peacein other words,
  that the well-ordered concord of domestic
  obedience and domestic rule has a relation to the
  well-ordered concord of civic obedience and civic
  rule. And therefore it follows, further, that the
  father of the family ought to frame his domestic
  rule in accordance with the law of the city, so
  that the household may be in harmony with the
  civic order. (197)

7
Evil disorder, vanity, mistakeevil does not
exist as a force of its own it is just the
absence of order, peace, and justice
8
Human Justice

• The human judge
• the result of this lamentable ignorance is that
  this very person, whom he tortured that he might
  not condemn if innocent, is condemned to death
  both tortured and innocent.()If such darkness
  shroud social life, will a wise judge take his
  seat on the bench or no? Beyond question he
  will. (190)

9
Slavery

• the apostle admonishes slaves to be subject to
  their masters, and to serve them heartily and
  with good-will, so that, if they cannot be freed
  by their masters, they may themselves make their
  slavery in some sort free, by serving not in
  crafty fear, but in faithful love (196)