 |
|
|
Augustine of Hippo, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
 Augustine of Hippo (354-430) was one of the most distinguished theologians in the history of the church and may have exercised more influence on the shape and character of Western theology, both catholic and Protestant, than any other, including even Thomas Aquinas (January 28). Patron saont of theologians, he was born Aureliu Augustinusa at Tagaste (also Thagaste) in Numidia (present-day Algeria), North Africa, to Monica (August 27), a Christian, and Patricius, who was a pagan until just before his death in 371 or 372. One of three sons, Augustine was raised a Christian and was registered as a catechumen, but, in accordance with contemporary custom, baptism was delayed until adulthood. He tool a concubine at age seventeen or eighteen, following his formal education as rhetorician and lawyer in Carthage, and had a son of his own, Adeodatus (lat, Given by God) ca. 373.
At age eighteen or nineteen Augustine experienced a kind of conversion through reading Cicero's Hortensius. He became enthralled with wisdom, or "philosophy" particularly Plato's as interpreted by Plotinus. When he turned to Scripture, he found it insufficiently philosophical and stylistically unsatisfactory. He then joined the Manichees, a religion sect that not only rejected the Old Testament, but also renounced most of the ordinary pleasures of life associated with eating, drinking, and sexual expression. Augustine taught rhetoric for a brief period in his house town of Tagaste, but moved back to Cartage ca. 376, where he conducted his own school of rhetoric and grammar. In 383 he, his companion, and their son sailed for Rome in order to seek professional advancement. After teaching rhetoric there for a year, and with the help of Manichaean friends and the pagan prefect of Rome, he was appointed professor of rhetoric in Milan, the seat of the imperial court. His mother, Monica, had followed him to Rome (arriving there after he had already left for Milan) and then to Milan. She attempted to arrange a socially advantageous marriage for him, but Augustine refused. His companion returned to Africa, after having lived fifteen years in all with him, and Augustine took another concubine.
As he became progressively disenchanted with Manichaeism (he had, for example, a disappointing encounter with a Manichaean bishop who was unable to answer his most fundamental questions), he came under the influence of a circle of Christian Neoplatonists in Milan, the most prominent of whom was the local bishop, Ambrose (December 7). Ambrose's eloquent sermons captivated Augustine, first for their style and then for their theological content. Ambrose demonstrated for him that it is possible to interpret the Bible allegorically in such a way that it was consistent with the Platonic ideas of which Augustine had become so enamored. After a long interior conflict that is vividly described in his confessions, he abandoned Manishaeism, changed his mind about the nature of evil (viewing it no longer, as the Manichaeans insisted, as an eternal substance coexistence with God, but as the privation or corruption of the good), and turned his attention to stories of monks and nuns in Italy and Egypt.
He was particularly affected by the Life of Antony by Athanasius (May 2). He wrote a letter on the ascetical life to a woman who would later found and two sermons on the subject, which included elements that would form the basis of a famous Rule. These writing would influence Western monasticism and religious life for centuries to come, even down to the present day. In 386 he retired from teaching largely because of continued asthmatic attacks, and withdrew to a county villa at Cassiciacum, near Milan, with his mother, brother, fifteen year old son (d. 389), friends and former students to take up what he expected to be a permanent communal life centered on leisurely philosophical discussion. He wrote four works of dialogues during this period as well as rebuttals of Manichaeism. One of his enduring sayings from this corpus of writings was his comment:" Do not try to understand in order to believe, but believe in order to understand" (On the Teacher 11.37). He was also especially influenced by the writings of St. Paul (June 29) and drew particularly upon the letters to the Galatians and to the Romans in his own Confessions.
It was while walking in a garden that he claimed to have heard the words: "Tolle, lege" (Lat. Pick up and read). He began reading Romans 13:12-14 (let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and licentiousness, not in rivalry and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh), and he was filled "with a light of certainty, and all shadow of doubt disappeared" (confessions 8.12.29). He returned to Milan in 387, took a catechetical course offered by Ambrose, and at age thirty three was baptized at the Easter Vigil. The party then set off for Africa, but his mother, Monica, died en route, in Ostia. He spent a year in Rome before returning to Africa, first to Carthage and then to Tagaste, where he established on his family's estate a quasi-monastic community of educated laymen.
During a visit to the port city of Hippo (also Hippo Regius) in 391, he attended a sermon given by the aged bishop Valerius in which the bishop spoke of the need for a priest for service in the city. Augustine was recognized and acclaimed by the local Christian community and practically compelled to accept ordination. The bishop, however, allowed Augustine to continue his monastic way of life and provided him with a house and garden near the church. In 395 he became their bishop, serving at first as coadjutor with the current bishop, and then succeeding him upon his death soon thereafter. Augustine's consecration had not been without controversy, given his known Manichaean past.
He remained bishop of Hippo for the rest of his life, preaching, writing, administering the sacraments, engaging in a broad range of other pastoral activities (he was especially devoted to the care and relief of the poor), presiding over synods and councils, and adjudicating civil as well as ecclesiastical cases - all while living ascetically in community with his clergy. Much time, however, was also devoted to travel, including twenty to thirty trips to Carthage, which required nine days each way. Nevertheless, he produced a number of major works during the course of his busy episcopate. They included not only the Confessions, but also his sermons on the Gospels, Epistles, and Psalms, the De Trinitate (Lat. on the Trinity), and the De Civitate (Lat. "On the City of God"), completed toward the end of his life. His writings were especially influential in the development of the doctrines of creation (written against the Manichees), grace (written against the Pelagians), and the sacraments and the Church, he insisted (in paraphrase) that: "Many whom God has, the church does not have; and many whom the church has, God does not have".
Only on the matters of predestination, sexual intercourse in marriage and the relationship of Church and state was his thinking inconsistent with the subsequent teaching of the church. (the first two were influenced by his Manichaean background). For Augustine, the human race as a whole was a massa damnata (Lat. "Damned mass"), from whom only a few are to be saved to manifest the mercy and glory of God. He consigned unbaptized infantsd to hell. The church teaches today that God offers everyone the gift of salvation and that it is theirs to lose by the exercise of their own free will, not because of some preordainment by God. Unbaptized infants, once thought to be in limbo, a place of natural happiness outside of heaven, are now regarded as capable of enjoying the eternal presence of God in heaven. Regarding sexual intercourse and that sexual intimacy is good and holy even when the possibility of procreation in not present, as in the case of infertile periods or in case of those beyond the age of conceiving a child. Regarding Church and state, Augustine held that the state could function as an arm of the Church, imposing civil punishments and heretics and others sinners. For Augustine, it was better to suffer coercion in this life than damnation in the next. The Church has since taught that the Church and the state are two independent and autonomous entities, albeit cooperative on matters affecting the common good.
Augustine died on August 29, 430, during the fourteen-month-long siege of hippo by the Vandals. His cult was early and widespread, and he is one of the four original Western Doctors of the Church, proclaimed in 1298, along with Ambrose, Jerome (September 30), and Gregory the Great (September 3). The earliest surviving painting of him - a sixty-century fresco- is in the Lateran Library. There are many depictions of him by Renaissance painters, among the most famous of which are Sandro Botticelli's fresco of 1480 in the Church of all Saints in plating the Trinity. His feast is on the General Roman Calendar and is also observed by the Church of England, the Episcopal Church in the USA, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. |
|
