Who was Augustine?

St. Augustine of Hippo

Who was Augustine?

Augustine of Hippo is undoubtedly the most significant patristic author in the Western Church. His popularity is in no small part due to the preservation of his manifold writings which include three hundred letters, five hundred sermons, dozens of commentaries, and numerous doctrinal treatises. Augustine consolidated exegetical and theological work of those who came before him, establishing what is now known as “Western,” or “Latin Christianity.” He was not only industrious, but also an original thinker, who used the tools of rhetoric and exegesis to write about disputed topics related to the nature of sin and grace, the church, the Trinity, and spirituality. His age was one of controversy to do with the nature of the church and the nature of grace. Massive political, financial and social upheavals were bringing the Roman Empire to its final days. Augustine remains a giant in the history of Western thought and Christian theology. His work had massive impact on the Middle Ages, the Reformation, as well as various modern theological movements. Augustine is the very definition of a theological giant.

Early life and Conversion

Augustine was born in 354, in Thagaste, a small town in present Algeria in North Africa, he was the son of a devout Christian mother, Monica. Yet in his early years, Augustine believed that Christianity was rationally unacceptable and unsophisticated. He studied rhetoric in Carthage, and became a Manichaean, a Persian religion based on the teachings of the prophet Mani and characterized by a strong dualism between good and evil. Augustine taught rhetoric in Carthage and Rome and was soon appointed to the imperial court in Milan. While in Milan, he was greatly influenced by Ambrose, bishop of Milan, especially by his preaching. He was converted intellectually but such preaching but was not yet committed to Christ’s Lordship over his life. He finally became a converted Christian after reading about great heroes of the faith such as S. Anthony. Troubled by their devotion to God –one he could not match –he withdrew to a garden and wept. Then, he heard “the voice of a boy or girl … chanting over and over again, pick it up and read it” (Tolle, lege). He there found a Bible and opened it at Romans 13:13: “Not in reveling and drunkenness … instead put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh.” It was this event that led to Augustine’s conversion and he was baptized by Ambrose at Easter in 387. The following year, he returned to North Africa, and was ordained a presbyter in a small coastal town in 391. In 397 Augustine was ordained assistant bishop, and then in 398 became the bishop of Hippo, where he remained until his death in 430.

Augustine’s Writings

Augustine’s writings are normally divided into five categories:

(i) the anti-Manichaean writings;

(ii) the anti-Donatist writings;

(iii) the anti-Pelagian writings;

(iv) the City of God; and

(v) theological writings, including, The Confessions, On Christian Doctrine, and On the Trinity.

To give a notoriously brief summary of these works, we could say the following.

Against the Manichaeans, Augustine argued that evil was not a substance, but a privation of something good. He defended the unity of the Old and New Testaments, the veracity of the Gospels, and witness of the apostolic writings compared to the errors of Mani. Augustine also refuted the idea that there are two gods at war with each other.

Against the Donatists, Augustine rejected their claim that only those who endured persecution faithfully where part of a pure church. Augustine saw the church as a mixed community, of the faithful, the struggling, and the unfaithful. These are separated at the final judgment, not by any church court. In any case, the efficacy of sacraments such as baptism and the Lord’s Supper did not depend upon the holiness of the minister, but upon the effectiveness of divine grace. In the end, Augustine supported state persecution of the Donatists.

Against Pelagius, Augustine claimed that human corruption means the slavery of the will to sin, and thus the inability to act towards God and other as one might desire to do so. Divine grace must heal the human will.. Sin, inherited from Adam and passed on seminally, must but be reversed by the grace of baptism, and the power of grace over human depravity.

Augustine’s Confessions is a spiritual autobiography that narrates his journey from a life of restlessness and carousing to his conversion to Christianity. The account documents his spiritual quest for truth, his embrace of and then disillusionment with Manichaeanism, his spiritual awakening in Milan, and the drive behind his intellectual pursuits. In also includes a long reflection on the nature of God, creation, and human memory.

Augustine’s On the City of God provides his theology of history by setting up a contrast between the virtues of heaven and the values of human society. For Augustine, the earthly city is centred on self-love and vice, while the heavenly city is centred of love of God and the cultivation of virtue. The book is a trenchant critique of paganism, not just as a religion but as a type of civilization, and it shows how Christianity provides a better way of being human. 

Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine is a treatise on theological interpretation, balancing literal and figurative meanings, explaining the association of words and meanings, it defends the usefulness of rhetoric, and asserts that the goal of biblical interpretation is promoting love for God and for neighbor.

Augustine’s On the Trinity is perhaps his great theological work which contends for the scriptural and creedal basis of trinitarian doctrine, establishes the nature of God, explores the personhood of the triune God and establishes their inseparable operations. The argument deploys scripture as well as philosophy and psychological analogies to contend for the unity and equality of all three divine persons.

Augustine’s Theology

In summary, Augustine's theology centred on humanity's desperate plight in sin and its equally desperate need for God's grace. God is sovereign and gracious, and the key role of the Catholic Church is to mediate salvation.

Against the Manichaeans, God is truly known from Scripture, and Scripture presents one God who is not the author of evil.  Against the Donatists, God possesses a church of saint and sinners, rather one pure church. Against the Pelagius, grace is more than assistance, it the journey from death to life. Against the pagans, Christianity has not corrupted their culture as much as provided a hope for it beyond the cities of the world.

Augustine's central theme was perhaps that the search for truth, meaning and happiness is ultimately found in loving and worshipping God.

His theology is best described with a quotation from his Confessions:

“For there is a joy that is not given to those who do not love you, but only to those who love you for your own sake. You yourself are their joy. Happiness is to rejoice in you and for you and because of you. This is happiness and there is no other. Those who think that there is another kind of happiness look for joy elsewhere, but theirs is not true joy.”

Augustine’s Significance

Augustine was a preacher, pastor, theologian, bishop, ethicist, cultural critic, and philosopher. All theologians today in the Western world, whether Protestant or Catholic, stand in the shadow of the Augustine, towering theologian of the Latin West.