Saint
Augustine of Hippo
Born: 13th November 354, Thalgaste,
Algeria
Died: 430
Feast Day: 28th August
Shrine: Augustinian
church at Pavia, Italy
Patron Saint: Theologians, Printers, Brewers,
Sore eyes
Writings: Confessions, The City of God, and many others
When I started on Saint Augustine, I was aware he was a Doctor of the
Church, but had no idea that although he ended up a Saint, for over the first
30 years of his life, he certainly was no saint, having many vices and famously
praying “Lord, make me chaste (sexually pure) – but not yet!”. I love the Saints who have started off badly,
it gives me hope – not to become a saint but to at least be accepted by God
despite everything. I have subtitled
these saints as Saints behaving badly.
Saint Augustine was born
to a wealthy family in Algeria, his mother an ardent Christian and father a pagan. Augustine was aware of the religious
differences in the Roman Empire. As an
adolescent he was more interested in sex than religion and living life to the
full. He would pinch the neighbour’s
pears to feed to the pigs. At the age of
17, Augustine went off to school in Carthage (Tunisia). He discovered Cicero and Manichean philosophy
discarding completely his mother’s religion.
He lived a hedonistic lifestyle including visiting brothels. He started
an affair which lasted for 15 years with a woman he never married but had a son
with.
Augustine returned home
to Thagaste teaching rhetoric and Manichaeism in the side, although he tried to
hide his views from his mother, she eventually found out and kicked him out of
the house.
Monica (who eventually
became Saint Monica) continued to pray for Augustine’s conversion and when he
got a teaching position in Carthage, she followed him there. When Augustine was offered a professorship in
Rome, Monica pleased with him not to go, Augustine told her to go home and not
to worry as he would stay in Carthage.
When she left, he boarded a ship for Rome.
Augustine moved to Milan
after a year in Rome to become a professor of rhetoric. He began attending the cathedral to hear the
oratory of Ambrose the Archbishop.
Augustine soon dropped Manichaeism for Neoplatonism. Monica caught up with him and tried to help
him find a proper wife. He could never
go public with his concubine who he loved dearly, as it would have been the
ruin of him socially and politically.
Augustine started to
struggle with himself, for years he had tried to overcome the sins of the flesh. It seemed to him even his smallest
transgressions were full of meaning.
Later writing about stealing pears he said "Our
real pleasure consisted in doing something that was forbidden. The evil in me
was foul, but I loved it."
One afternoon while reflecting on his life he suddenly heard a child’s
voice repeating, "Take up and read." On a table lay a
collection of Paul's epistles he'd been reading; he picked it up and read the
first thing he saw: "Not in revelling and drunkenness, not in lust and
wantonness, not in quarrels and rivalries. Rather, arm yourselves with the Lord
Jesus Christ, spend no more thought on nature and nature's appetites" (Romans
13:13–14).
He later wrote, "No further would I read; nor needed I:
for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity
infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away."
Augustine’s conversion turned his world upside down. He contacted Ambrose and let him know, he
resigned his professorship and retreated with friends and his mother to a villa
in Cassiciacum (Italy), he wrote many books.
Six months later he was baptised by Ambrose. He moved back to his hometown in Thagaste to
live as a writer and thinker. By the
time he got back, which took longer than expected, he had lost his mother, his son,
and a close friend. Spurred on by his losses, he and friends founded a lay
ascetic community in Thagaste.
Augustine travelled to Hippo (Algeria) to establish a monastery in
the region, his reputation went before him.
Stories state that Bishop Valerius seeing Augustine in his church in
Hippo one Sunday, put down his prepared sermon and preached on how the area
needed priests. Augustine was pushed forward
by the crowd for ordination. Taking
Augustine’s tears of frustration to mean he wanted to be a Bishop and not
priest, they tried to assure him that all good things come to those who wait. Valerius handed over teaching and preaching
duties to Augustine, and five years later, following Valerius death, Augustine
was made bishop of Hippo.
Manichaeism, although petering out was still popular, however,
Augustine, at the public baths, debated with Fortunatus, a leading Manichaean,
and knowing the strengths and weaknesses, dealt it a final blow with Fortunatus
leaving the town in shame. He then had
to battle the Donatism which came to a head in 411 when a debate was convened
by the Imperial Commissioner, Augustine’s rhetoric destroyed the Donatist appeal.
When Rome fell and people accused Christianity for its fall
Augustine’s response over 22 volumes and 12 years in ‘The City of God’ argued
that Rome was punished for its past sins and not its new faith. For the last 10 years of his life Augustine
argued with the former Bishop Julian of Eclanum who took over from Pelagius who
rejected the idea of original sin.
In 429 Vandals invaded North Africa and Hippo which was one of the
only fortified cities was overwhelmed with refugees. Augustine died of a fever 3 months later. Miraculously, his writings survived the Vandal
takeover and his theology became one of the main pillars of the Catholic
church. He detailed his spiritual
journey in his famous ‘Confessions’ and wrote many other works.
References:
Saints, Robbie Blake,
HarperCollins
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