Aurelius Augustine

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Aurelius Augustine
b. November 13, 354 d. August 28, 430
A life searching for truth which would bring
human fulfillment
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Ancient Church History
Medieval Church History
Modern Church History
Reformation Counter Reformation
Apostolic Church
The First Medieval Pope
Apostolic Fathers
The Rise of the Holy Roman Empire
Rationalism, Revivalism, Denominationalism
The Crusades
Church Councils
Revivalism, Missions, Modernism
Golden Age of Church Fathers
The Papacy in Decline
The Pre-Reformers
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Augustine of Hippo 354 - 430
Augustine will sound this theme which will
permeate his thinking aboutevery major problem
he would face. Though the human self is created
for the knowledge and love of Godand is
unquiet until it comes to rest in God, it is
also turned away fromGod and lost in a falsely
directed love. While this perversion can be
described, it cannot be accounted for. Its
springs . . . will liedeeper than the level of
conscious choice by the same token, its
rectification depends on an impulse which human
choice cannot of itselfprovide. Only the grace
and love of God, working in ways which
cannotalways be discerned or understood, can
redirect human loving and focusit on the
ultimate source of its fulfillment God.
The Cauldron of Conversion 354 - 387
Interiorsearchfor thetruth
Africa
Philosophy
Parents
Disposition
Education
Conversion
His spiritual pilgrimage conversion as a clue
to, anillustration of, the universal situation
of human beingsin relation to God
Confessions
His Christian Service in the Church 387 - 430
Polemicist
Practicalproblemsof thechurch
Preacher
Practice
Episcopal Administrator
Theologian
Philosopher
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Africa Modern Day
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Tall Long Limbed Thin chested w/sloping
shoulders
Numidian, Berber
Neither African or European
Long nose, high forehead,thick lips and large
black eyes
His skin was dark bronze
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North Africa
Carthage settled by Phoenicians
Carthage had been a great threat to Rome and
almost defeated Rome, a large sea port, with
cosmopolitan lifestyle. Became a Roman colony.
Coluseums, and baths, and forums wild beast
shows
North Africa by the 4th Century in decline
Thagaste (Tagaste) was under the
influence/control of Carthage. It was a city 150
miles from the sea and 2000 ft high It was
located in an area of forests and pines and
farms. A Roman colony
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Augustines Family
Patricius
Brown Augustine, a man of many significant
silences, will pass him over(his father) coldly.
He was generous, but hot tempered. Patricius
hadbeen immoderately proud of his son he was
admired by all for the sacrifices he made to
complete Augustines education. Augustine
recordsa scene in the baths, in which his father
had been delighted to find that hisson had
reached puberty. All that the son will say, in
return, is that he seesin me only hollow
things. Patricius died just after he had
scraped togetherenough money to send his
brilliant boy to Carthage. Augustine, who
willsoon experience and express deep grief at
the loss of a friend, will mentionhis fathers
death only in passing.
Monica
Older brother, Navigius Older sister(s), unknown
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And although she knew that my passions were
destructive even then and dangerous for the
future, she did not think they should be
restrained by the bonds of conjugal
affection--if, indeed, they could not be cut away
to the quick. She took no heed of this, for she
was afraid lest a wife should prove a hindrance
and a burden to my hopes. These were not her
hopes of the world to come, which my mother had
in thee, but the hope of learning, which both my
parents were too anxious that I should
acquire--my father, because he had little or no
thought of thee, and only vain thoughts for me
my mother, because she thought that the usual
course of study would not only be no hindrance
but actually a furtherance toward my eventual
return to thee. This much I conjecture, recalling
as well as I can the temperaments of my parents.
Meantime, the reins of discipline were slackened
on me, so that without the restraint of due
severity, I might play at whatsoever I fancied,
even to the point of dissoluteness. And in all
this there was that mist which shut out from my
sight the brightness of thy truth, O my God and
my iniquity bulged out, as it were, with fatness!
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Augustines Disposition
But what was it that delighted me save to love
and to be loved? Still I did not keep the
moderate way of the love of mind to mind--the
bright path of friendship. Instead, the mists of
passion steamed up out of the puddly
concupiscence of the flesh, and the hot
imagination of puberty, and they so obscured and
overcast my heart that I was unable to
distinguish pure affection from unholy desire.
Both boiled confusedly within me, and dragged my
unstable youth down over the cliffs of unchaste
desires and plunged me into a gulf of infamy. Thy
anger had come upon me, and I knew it not. I had
been deafened by the clanking of the chains of my
mortality, the punishment for my soul's pride,
and I wandered farther from thee, and thou didst
permit me to do so. I was tossed to and fro, and
wasted, and poured out, and I boiled over in my
fornications--and yet thou didst hold thy peace,
O my tardy Joy! Thou didst still hold thy peace,
and I wandered still farther from thee into more
and yet more barren fields of sorrow, in proud
dejection and restless lassitude.
Strengths
Weaknesses
Robert Payne Augustines early years reveal an
intense, proud, and sensual man who yearned to
know truth.
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Augustines Education
His education was thoroughly pagan, lacking in
Greek studies, steeped in Latinancient classics.

In the usual course of the syllabus, I had
reached a book by Cicero its stylewas admired
by almost all, though its message was ignored.
This book, however, Contains an exhortation to
philosophy it is called The Hortensius. This
book, Indeed, changed all my way of feeling. It
changed my prayers to Thee, O Lordit gave me
entirely different plans and aspirations.
Suddenly, all empty hope formy career lost its
appeal and I was left with an unbelievable fire
in my heart, desiring the deathless qualities of
Wisdom, and I made a start to rise up and
returnto Thee . . . . I was on fire, my God, on
fire to fly away from earthly things to Thee.
The ideal product of this Latin education was
the orator, a man whocould give pleasure
throughout his argument, by his vivacity, by the
feelingsat his command, by the ease with which
the words came to him, perfectlyadapted to dress
his message in style. Brown
Augustine will be educated to become a master of
the spoken word.
Augustine turns to the Bible, but finds it cold
and meaningless, thus, he turnsto Manichaeanism
because it offered truth and dealt with the
problem of evil.
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Augustines Conversion
He arrives in Rome and is given audience to a
Roman prefect,Symmachus, because of Augustines
ties to Manichaeanism.Symmachus was Ambroses
cousin and both were fightingto influence Rome.
Symmachus was looking to appoint a teacher to an
influential government position of teacher of
rhetoric in Milan.
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Augustines Search for Truth
Vagabond Mind
I dared to roam the woods and pursue my vagrant
loves beneath the shades. . . .Lord, how
loathsome I was in Thy sight. Lust stormed
confusedly within me,whirling my thoughtless
youth over the precipices of desire, and so I
wanderedstill further from Thee, and Thou didst
leave me to myself the torrent of
myfornications tossed and swelled and boiled and
run over.
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Astrology
Philosophy
Paganism he joined a pagan cult
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Manichaeanism
Neoplatonism
Skepticism
Interior search for truth and an absorption in
worldly and sexual gratification
July, 386
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Circumstances of Augustines Conversion
Background
Christian influence of his mother and a growing
culture of Christianity.
Intense desire for truth serious intellectual
pursuit.
Has a great sense of his evil nature.
Alternatives to Christianity
Tries Manichaeanism, but rejects it.
Tries Platonism, but rejects it.
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Circumstances of His Conversion in Milan
Augustine reaches the pinnacle of his profession,
has wealth, popularity, friends,a villa, but is
dissatisfied. panting after honors, profits,
and marriage
Is forced to give up mistress of 15 years and
mother of his son for anarranged marriage to
achieve a higher social status.
The leading Neoplatonists, Marius Victorinus,
converts to Christianity castingAugustine into
skepticism and doubt.
Comes under the preaching of Ambrose and struck
by the certaintyof truth and answers to the
problem of evil given in his sermons.
A visitor named Pontitian challenged Augustine to
take up the monastic life and chastity. Ambition
and Physical Pleasure. Give me chastity and
continencebut not now.
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Timeline After Conversion
retreat
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Lessons from the Life of Augustine
Never give up on the conversion of a lost person
God was able to use Augustines bad past for the
good of the church
Monica - dont underestimate the effect of a
faithful mother on thehistory of Christianity
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Augustines Areas of Influence
1. Polemicist
2. Preacher
3. Episcopal Administrator
4. Theologian
5. Philosopher