Oh God, thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts are restless 'til they find their rest in thee.

Augustine of Hippo is rightly regarded as the most important theologian in the history of the Western Church. One of my seminary professors said that "all later theology is a footnote to Augustine". While this is an intentional overstatement, it is not as much of an exaggeration as one might think. Another of my professors regarded him as one of the four most significant figures in pre-modern philosophy. Augustine did not come to the proper conclusions on every issue, but he tackled the fundamental issues more comprehensively than any Christian thinker before him. We could very easily, and very profitably, spend an entire quarter just on Augustine.

Today, I am going to focus primarily on the biography of Augustine. What factors shaped him into the man he became? What were the conflicts that prompted his philosophizing and theologizing?

For today's lesson I am going to lean heavily on Augustine's own recounting of his life in The Confessions. The title probably calls to mind the idea of making an accounting for one's transgessions either in prayer, or to a friend, or perhaps for those of you from a Roman Catholic background, to a priest. There is an element of this in Augustine's story, but that isn't quite what he seems to intend by the title. Rather, his purpose is to recognise and publicly declare the goodness of God who has providentially been working even from Augustine's infancy to bring him to a knowledge of God.

Early Life

Augustine was born on 13 November 354 A.D. in the town of Thagaste in North Africa. His mother Monica was a devout Christian, but his father was still a pagan (in later days, his mother's patient example would win his father to Christ as well). He describes himself as having already been a believer even from his boyhood (I.17). As we shall see, whatever degree of faith he had at that time was not sufficient to preserve him from falling into grave errors.

His family was well off, and Augustine was provided with numerous opportunities for learning. He loved the Latin classics, but found Greek to be burdensome and annoying. Reflecting on this, he correctly observes that this was due to his own sinfulness (I.20) He was actually quite a bit more proficient in Greek than he lets on, being perfectly capable of doing his own translation from the NT when necessary.

In his teen years, Augustine's struggles were not terribly different from those of any teenager – he longed for love, he gave in to lust, and he ran with a crowd of petty hooligans. Read II.2. All the while, his mother patiently reminded him of the truth of Scripture, called him to repentance, and warned him of youthful foolishness. However, his parents did not provide consistency in discipline (see II.7-8).

Augustine relates one particular instance of youthful hooliganism that is striking both for its triviality, and for his insight into the underlying significance of the act (Read II.9) Why does Augustine seize on this event as something particularly evil? Read II.12 – point out his question "do you exist at all" and comment on Augustine's theodicy. Comment on the dichotomy between pride and shame.

Around sixteen years of age, Augustine went off to Carthage to continue his studies of literature and rhetoric. In Carthage, he became an avid attender of the theater and deeply enamored of his own capacity to feel miserable as a result. He still attended the worship services in Carthage. We know this because he mentions using it as an opportunity to pick up a young lady with whom he began an affair.

During his studies, he became acquainted with Cicero. He was deeply moved by the style of Cicero's rhetoric, and moved by the injunction to study philosophy. The one thing lacking in Cicero was the Saviour. Cicero's instruction did move him to return to the fount of wisdom which he had known from earliest youth: the Scriptures, but he found the bible lacking in rhetorical style. Read III.10.

Manichean

Vulnerable to those who could disguise their falsehoods with slick speech, he fell in with the Manicheans. The Manicheans were a sect that followed the teachings of a third century Persian. Mani combined ideas drawn from Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, and the eastern mystery religions. The key ideas of Manichaeism are:

1. A belief that all knowledge can be arrived at by the exercise of pure reason. Faith was ridiculed in the Manichean system. The path to salvation is the gaining of knowledge.

2. A dualism between two equally powerful personal forces, one good and the other evil. They maintained that this was essential for explaining the problem of evil in the world, and that Christianity had no solution.

3. The good god (who is himself a material being) is imprisoned in the things of the material world. The mission of the Manichees then was to free the divine principle from its bondage. (See III.18)

The Manichees also had a profound interest in astrology, which they claimed to be imminently reasonable. After some years as a Manichee, Augustine became troubled that the explanations that the philosophers gave concerning the operation of the physical world seemed to better accord with his observations than did the doctrines of Mani. Read V.6 and footnote.

When a famous Manichean bishop, Faustus, came to Carthage, Augustine went and questioned him about these matters. Faustus turned out not to be well educated in the opposing position and provided him with no satisfaction. His disillusionment grew and in short time he gave up on Manicheanism.

Around this time, he removed himself to Rome to further his teaching career. Augustine tells us that his main motivation in doing so was not the prospect of greater money and reputation. Rather, he had heard that the young men of Rome were well disciplined students. The truth, he discovered, was that they treated their teachers far worse. While they did not engage in the acts of petty vandalism that had annoyed him at Carthage, they were prone to doing things such as grouping together and transferring to another tutor to avoid paying their fees.

When an opportunity arose to take a position in Milan, with the government paying for his relocation, he seized upon it. Read V.23-25.

If there's time, look at VI.7 and comment upon Augustine's idea of faith as indirect knowledge, contrast to his development of notitia, assensus, and fiducia.

About this time, his mother arranged a marriage for him. The girl was still two years under age, so the wedding was delayed. It was necessary to send his consort, the mother of his son Adeodatus, away, so that she would not be a hindrance to the marriage preparations. Still a slave to lust, he took another consort to bide the time until his marriage.

His flirtation with the philosophers of the Academy, by now a den of Skepticism, was not fully satisfying, and he turned to Neoplatonism in his search for the answers to the persistent problems, such as the existence of evil. He never abandoned his neo-platonism entirely. Although at times it led him to some erroneous ideas (e.g. his support for asceticism), it provided him with useful tools for organising his insights about Scripture. As he matured in knowledge and faith, he came to unequivocally deny most of the precepts of Neo-platonism and to oppose them publicly in several books.

Augustine's solution to the problem of evil is particularly useful. Read VII.19.

Throughout this, the Holy Spirit continued to draw Augustine to Himself. Augustine came along reluctantly, for he discovered that he still cherished his sin. Read VIII.17

Conversion

Read VIII.28-29

Following his conversion, he retired from teaching and sojourned for a time at the house of his friend Verecundus. He returned from the country and was baptised on 24 April 387, along with his friend Alypius and his son Adeodatus.

Shortly thereafter, Monica died and was buried at Ostia. Augustine at first plunged into depths of sorrow, but very quickly recovered upon contemplating how the Lord had used his mother to bring him to newness of life, and that now for a time she was resting in the Lord.

The remainder of the Confessions deal with philosophical and theological issues. From his other works, we can piece together a very thorough account of the remainder of his life.

Following his baptism, he returned to Rome, where he engaged in disputations against the Manichees. Later, with some close friends, he returned to his childhood home in Thagaste to a life of semi-monasticism. He had no thought of entering the priesthood, and feared the thought of the episcopacy so much that he is reputed to have fled from any city he was in if an election was imminent (perhaps the influence of Ambrose can be seen here).

He was called to Hippo by an unconverted friend who was wrestling with the faith. While praying in the church there, he was surrounded by locals who begged the bishop to consecrate him a priest. Augustine yielded. Following his ordination, he founded a monastery, but entered into the preaching ministry of the church. He became an assistant to the bishop in matters of adjudication, and was consecrated a bishop. He remained Bishop of Hippo until his death in a siege in 430 AD.

Controversies

Augustine engaged in disputations and writings with four important groups.

Against the Manichees, he asserted a Christian answer to the problem of evil.

Against the Donatists, he formulated a doctrine of the church. Augustine's work here is much in line with Cyprian's, but it is more advanced. It is from this controversy that we first begin to see the doctrine of the church formulated in terms of the visible Church and the invisible Church.

Against Pelagius, he asserted the doctrines of grace.

Against pagan Romans, he formulated the first historiography, a philosophy of history. Where they blamed Christianity for the fall of the empire, he asserted that all of history was a conflict between the City of Man and the City of God.