Saint Augustine
Saint Augustine, b. Nov. 13, 354, d. Aug. 28, 430, was one of the foremost philosopher-theologians of early Christianity and, while serving (396-430) as bishop of Hippo Regius, the leading figure in the church of North Africa. He had a profound influence on the subsequent development of Western thought and culture and, more than any other person, shaped the themes and defined the problems that have characterized the Western tradition of Christian Theology. Among his many writings considered classics, the two most celebrated are his semi-autobiographical Confessions, which contains elements of Mysticism, and City of God, a Christian vision of history.
Early Life and Conversion
Augustine was born at Thagaste (modern Souk-Ahras, Algeria), a small town in the Roman province of Numidia. He received a classical education that both schooled him in Latin literature and enabled him to escape from his provincial upbringing. Trained at Carthage in rhetoric (public oratory), which was a requisite for a legal or political career in the Roman empire, he became a teacher of rhetoric in Carthage, in Rome, and finally in Milan, a seat of imperial government at the time. At Milan, in 386, Augustine underwent religious conversion. He retired from his public position, received baptism from Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, and soon returned to North Africa. In 391, he was ordained to the priesthood in Hippo Regius (modern Bone, Algeria); five years later he became bishop.
The first part of Augustine's life (to 391) can be seen as a series of attempts to reconcile his Christian faith with his classical culture. His mother, Saint Monica, had reared him as a Christian. Although her religion did not hold an important place in his earl...
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...o. In doing so, he created a theology that has remained basic to Western Christianity, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, ever since. Feast day: Aug. 28.
William S. Babcock
Bibliography: Battenhouse, Roy, ed., A Companion to the Study of St. Augustine (1955); Brown, Peter, Augustine of Hippo (1967; repr. 1987); Burnaby, John, Amor Dei: A Study of the Religion of St. Augustine (1938 repr. 1960); Chadwick, Henry, Augustine (1986); Marrou, H. I., St. Augustine and His Influence Through the Ages, trans. by P. Hepburne-Scott (1957); O'Daly, Gerard, Augustine's Philosophy of the Mind (1987); O'Meara, John, An Augustine Reader (1973); Pagels, Elaine, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988); Pelikan, Jaroslav, The Mystery of Continuity: Time and History, Memory and Eternity in the Thought of St. Augustine (1986); Smith, Warren Thomas, Augustine: His Life and Thought (1980).
St. Augustine considers his mother as a crucial factor in his conversion to Catholicism. However through the analysis of his Confessions it leads me to believe that St. Augustine’s mother was not a decisive figure. Monica was in the background keeping him in thought and prayer however Augustine’s watershed moments came as a result of his own examination of readings as well as his conversations with his friends and mentors. Therefore I argue that Monica had delayed Augustine’s baptism and it was his own experiences that allowed him to come to God.
138) Augustine employs these questions to provoke strong emotions in his readers. If Augustine had not utilized this literary tool, it may have been unfeasible for him to convey his ideas as admirably as he does with them. Writers use rhetorical questions for eloquence and readers cannot easily quantify the impact rendered by a rhetorical question. The idea becomes all the more robust, and the reader’s interest is piqued and therefore the reader continues to read and take pleasure in the technical and aesthetic beauty that a rhetorical question produces. Moreover, it is rather essential in compelling texts, such as when Augustine is attempting to seek comfort solely in God, instead of lust and love in God’s creations, which can all develop into evil. Augustine implies that evil is not the creation of God, but it has existed since the inception of creation as a
Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo. The City of God. Trans. Marcus Dods. New York: The Modern Library, 2000.
Francis of Assisi is one of the most influential personalities in the entire world. In the book ‘Francis of Assisi: Performing the Gospel Life,’ Cunningham recounts the life of this humble monk who lived in the medieval times, and shaped the Christian life, which spread in Western culture throughout the rest of history. I believe Cunningham accurately accounts for the life of Francis of Assisi, and in doing so; he provides a trajectory of the Christian faith from its early and historical proponents through its fusion with western culture, and its subsequent spread throughout the world.
St. Augustine is a man with a rational mind. As a philosopher, scholar, and teacher of rhetoric, he is trained in and practices the art of logical thought and coherent reasoning. The pursuits of his life guide him to seek concrete answers to specific questions. Religion, the practice of which relies primarily on faith—occasionally blind faith—presents itself as unable to be penetrated by any sort of scientific study or inquiry. Yet, like a true scientist and philosopher, one of the first questions St. Augustine poses in his Confessions is: “What, then, is the God I worship” (23)? For a long time, Augustine searches for knowledge about God as a physical body, a particular entity—almost as if the Lord were merely a human being, given the divine right to become the active figurehead of the Christian religion.
This paper will outline specific points in Saint Augustine’s Confessions that highlight religious views following the fall of Rome. Though Augustines views on religion may not reflect that of most people in his time period, it still gives valuable insight into how many, namely Neoplatonists,, viewed God and his teachings.
Augustine’s contention that man cannot possibly come into truth by reason in his temporal life constitutes his initial departure from the ancients, and results in the need for an entirely new structuring of the relationship between man and the good. In differentiating between the nature of God and man, Augustine argues that man’s nature—unlike God’s—is corruptible, and is thus “deprived of the light of eternal truth” (XI, 22) . This stands the thought of Plato on its head, since now no amount of contemplation and argument will be capable of getting man closer to a truth that exists on a plane that “surpasses the reach of the human mind” (XXI, 5). If reason is an instrument as flawed as man himself, how, then, is man to know the supreme good if he is forced to grope blindly for it in a state of sin without any assistance from the powers of his own mind? It is this question which serves as the premise for Augustine’s division of existence into the City of Man and the City of God and articulation of a system of vice and struggle against vice that keeps man anchored to the City of Man and prevents him from entering the City of God in temporal life.
In the Confessions, Augustine wrote about his struggle with understanding how evil exists in a world created by God. He questioned how it was possible and why God allows evil in his creations because God is supremely good. After delving into finding a solution, Augustine concluded that evil does not exist, and the things deemed as evil are caused by free will. This paper will argue that Augustine has successfully proven that evil does not exist by explaining his earlier explanation of the origin of evil taught by the Manicheans, explaining Augustine’s teachings, and finally, using the textual descriptions of Augustine’s unwillingness to convert as support for his conclusion.
Augustine. “Confessions”. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. 8th ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 1113-41. Print.
It therefore appears evident that God must be the root of all evil, as He created all things. However, Augustine delves deeper in search for a true answer. This paper will follow ...
In conclusion, Saint Augustine’s life is a good example of the concept of reading, conversion and memory, which we can use as a guideline for the quest in finding God. As we saw through out the book, Saint Augustine went through many processes of reading, conversion and memory. He not only went through these conversions in an academic way, but also in a religious way. He went from not believing in God to reading the Bible, reading Platonian books and Cicero’s Hortensius. It was after reading these literatures that he began to believe in God and went through a religious journey to understand God and Jesus Christ. It was during this journey to understand God and Jesus Christ that he used his memory to remember things he read and how they relate to what he was trying to figure out at the time.
A common thread of faith and reason runs through the two different theological visions of St. Augustine in his Confessions. This can be seen by comparing the ascent, the vision, the descent, and language in the two visions. Although other parts of the text will be referred to, the central part of these visions are as follows:Vision 1: "...
Augustine believed that the pursuit of wisdom without recognizing the importance and the power of God was useless. In his view it was a sin for a man to have that much pride and arrogance about his own intellect. Augustine recalled that as a very young man he himself succumbed to excessive pride. He fervently desired the recognition and prestige that came with being an accomplished rhetorician. He “squandered the brains [God] gave [him] on foolish delusions.” (I, 37)
Saint Augustine, born Aurelis Augustinus, was an influential and great philosopher and theologian of early times. He was considered the most important of the Latin Church Fathers. His writings of sermons gained fame, notably Confessions and his Treatise City of God. Through his work he helped distinguish the church in Western Europe from the church that it had reformed elsewhere.
Saint Augustine of Hippo was born on November 13, 354, in the town of Thagaste, which is now located in Algeria. His father was a pagan who converted on his death bed, and his mother was Saint Monica, whom was a devout Christian. In 370, he went to the University at Carthage to study rhetoric and wanted to become a lawyer. He gave up on law, and later on abandoned his Christian faith. He had a mistress with who he lived with for fifteen years and he had a son out of wedlock as well. He later, returned to his Christian faith, and on the death of his mother he returned to Africa, sold his property, gave all of his income to the poor, and founded a monastery at Tagas...