Augustine - Index to an Age

November 25, 1962
Rochester

Sermon Series: Our Judeo-Christian Heritage
10. Augustine - Index to an Age

When Rome was at its weakest, a strange man, brilliant of mind and passionate of spirit, provided the strongest individual influence ever made on the Christian Church. The Roman Catholic Church calls him "Saint" Augustine. The Protestants do not call him "Saint," officially, but the theology of John Calvin, and Martin Luther as well, were molded by Augustine. Liberals have acquired greater understanding of their own principles and methods by reacting to Augustine's dogmatic theology of the Trinity, Original Sin, Grace, Pre-Destination and the Sacraments.

An African, he was the pre-eminent figure in the history of the Catholic Church. In a very real sense, he was the draftsman of Western Christianity.

In common with all men who have molded history, Augustine cannot be understood apart from his times. He experienced the Roman Empire throughout his lifetime only as a state rapidly weakening, as it attempted to withstand the barbarians pressing in from the German forests; crowding in from the Asian steppes. When he was thirteen years old, the Picts and the Scots, far from North Africa, successfully invaded England. DV2911US When Augustine was in the maturity of his career, the remnant of the Roman Legions left England in a last valiant attempt to bolster weaker parts of the Empire.

There is no one reason why the Roman Empire fell. Nearly every theory that is advanced is plausible; but all are incomplete. In all such judgments, perhaps the total is greater than the sum of the parts. There is an intangible thing which has been called, "the fullness of time" in all sweeping changes and movements. It was long past the fullness of time for Rome's greatness. It was the fullness of time for her decline. Yet in one cultural sense, Rome never fell. The legal, political, CIVIL government was transformed into a legal, political ECCLESIASTICAL government. The years of Augustine's lifetime witnessed the frailty and decline of Emperors and Roman legions, but these years also knew the growing strength of the Church as a powerful institution with vigorous leadership.

If one isolates the one hundred years from 350 to 450 A.D., one would be hard-pressed to discover another century, except the first century, where there have been more competent or powerful men upholding the Christian faith. There was a backdrop of declining Rome; and in the foreground of the stage of history, there was the shifting scenery of dogma. Among the great men achieving honor and glory for the Church in this significant century was Ambrose, elected Bishop of Milan in 374. Ambrose feared God but not emperors. It is possible that because of his wisdom, Augustine was gathered to the Church.

It was in this same century that Augustine, the great theologian, fixed for Roman, Calvinistic, Lutheran and other branches of mainstream Christianity, the theological foundations of the doctrines of the Trinity, Church and State, Sacraments, Freedom of Will or lack of it, and he pointed up the mystic ideal. A most vexing question, which perhaps implies the most pathetic of answers, did Augustine also make the final muddling and the complete confusion of message, spirit and the contribution of Jesus?

We know more about Augustine than almost any great leader of the early period. His "Confessions," one of the great classics of Christian literature, tell us a great deal about his life, even more about his temperament; and to the critical eye, a great deal is disclosed as to what made Christianity the kind of theological religion that it is.

On the 13th of November, in the year 354, in the city of Thagaste in North Africa, there was born of Monica, a devout Christian woman, and a father who was a "pagan" and a freeman, a baby boy they called Augustine. In later years, Augustine would look critically at his own boyhood as he recalled youthful delinquencies, but he seemed to have had a normal boy's life. He played ball, preferring it to learning. He was somewhat scornful of adult occupations and labors. He said this was the "idleness they call business." He liked the epic stories from antiquity, but balked at proper study of his Latin grammar. He went on raids with other boys, stealing apples from orchards, getting great pleasure out of the fellowship of the "gang." Augustine's teachers thought he showed great promise. While in his home he received Christian training from his devout mother, Monica, and while he seemed to accept her instruction passively, there may well have been religious tensions in the house. His father was a non-Christian, a "pagan," although at a later time in his life, he may have taken instruction in the Christian faith.

Christian history probably has not been sufficiently appreciative of this “pagan” father, because he sacrificed enough so that Augustine could receive advanced education at Madura, a neighboring city. At school, Augustine showed commendable progress in the study of grammar and rhetoric.

Augustine lived in a time and place where promiscuity was the rule, not the exception. Greco-Roman-Oriental culture, except in those places where Christian rules for sexual conduct prevailed, was heavily larded with sensuality. Monica wanted to restrain the self-indulgence and the passionate drives of young Augustine. In what may have been rare faithfulness for his time, Augustine took one girl for a mistress and remained faithful to her for some years. But he was etching a rut of self-indulgence which was to cause him great inner storms of guilt later in his life. To this union of Augustine and his mistress, a son, Adeodatus, was born.

When Augustine completed his studies at Madura, he returned home to teach rhetoric. After a stay at home, he went to Carthage at the age of seventeen. He enjoyed the sophisticated life of that cosmopolitan center, following the drama, other arts and pleasures available in the large city.

Augustine’s great intellectual ability was recognized at this early age as he was made head of the school of rhetoric in Carthage. Augustine’s sensual life did not entirely overwhelm everything else. He yearned for wisdom. He was stimulated to search for understanding insight by studying the works of the great Roman, Cicero. Probably because mother Monica urged it, Augustine investigated and studied the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Interestingly enough, at this period of his intellectual life, he rejected those scriptures as not being on the same high scholarly level as the Latin classics. He was impressed by the dualistic religion of Manicheism and studied its teachings. Ten years passed while he taught, took his pleasures, studied, debated. Then came a climax, one of many in his life. Bishop Faustus of the Manicheans visited Carthage. For nine years, Augustine had anticipated the meeting. But Faustus proved a disappointment, for he could not answer the questions of the young rhetorician. Augustine concluded that the education of the bishop had been superficial and bothered no more with this dualistic, Asian competitive religion to Christianity.

Augustine, restless, searching, decided to go to Rome. He thought that there the discipline would be better among the students. (Note to teachers: some things are never new.) Although Monica objected, Augustine took his mistress and their young son and set said for Rome where he was to teach his major field, rhetoric. The Bishop of Milan was one of the great men of the age. Ambrose was a fearless leader, eloquent preacher, learned scholar, sensitive to the rhythms of poetry and music in the church. Augustine admired Ambrose; went to hear him, not so much concerned about the theology Ambrose was preaching, but rather as an appreciative critic of eloquence and style. But under the influence of this brilliant bishop, Augustine begins to wonder if there are not some great truths in the Catholic faith. He decides to make inquiries and accept instruction.

His mother, Monica, ever-prayerful, ever-devout (and if one may judge from references in the “Confessions,” apparently ever-weeping), followed Ambrose to Milan, still hoping and praying that her son would turn to Christianity. She arranged for Augustine to be married to a maiden of “suitable station,” but for whom Augustine would have to wait two years. Then, in perhaps the least forgivable action of the lives of Augustine and Monica, his mistress of many years is sent back to Africa alone. Augustine, his son Adeodatus and Monica remain in Milan. Looking backward, it is much easier to have sympathy for the woman who remained faithful to Augustine for many years, even though no marriage occurred, than for Augustine’s mother, who probably tried for years to persuade Augustine to do what he finally did, get rid of the girl whom he had loved and who was the mother of his son.

Augustine continued his studies. He studied Plato as well as the doctrines of Christianity. Christian converts told Augustine and his friend, Alypius, the story of the monk, Anthony, who resisted temptations in the desert. The two pagan scholars were greatly impressed. One day in the garden in Milan, Augustine was waging a great inner struggle, which he records in Book 8 of the “Confessions.” At the height of the battle between his yearnings for Christianity and his habit of skeptical philosophical analysis, not to speak of his troubles with his own sensuality, he thinks he hears a child, as in a game, say, “take up and read.” Augustine picked up a book which opened to Paul’s letter to the Romans. The first lines he read were, “not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.” (Rom. 13/13). That moment was the great conversion experience for Augustine. The bright light of Christian truth seemed to illumine his soul. Very soon afterwards, on Easter Sunday in the year 386, Augustine, his son Adeodatus, and his friend Alypius were baptized by Bishop Ambrose in the cathedral at Milan.

Monica had seen her fondest dreams come true. She prepared to return to North Africa, but was not destined to reach there. At the seaport of Ostia, after a conversation which Augustine records in the “Confessions,” with words mystical and uplifting, she died happy.

Soon after his mother’s death, Augustine returned to Thagaste in North Africa to form a community of religious men in the countryside. Later this society was to become the model of the Augustinian type of monastic life. (We might recall that among the great Augustinians, more than a thousand years later, was Martin Luther.)

Augustine now had ample time to use his powers of mind for the very intensive study of the scriptures. But this serene, academic life was not to continue very long. In 390, he was asked to go to Hippo, one of the important cities of North Africa, to give advice to a friend who was troubled by religious questions. In Hippo, Bishop Valerius ordained Augustine, somewhat against Augustine’s wishes. Four years later, he became the official colleague of the bishop – co-adjutor bishop he would be called today. Soon he was to become Bishop of Hippo when his aged predecessor died.

The date is significant. It was in the same year, 395, that the Emperor Theodosius, died in Milan. Theodosius was the last Roman emperor to reign over the whole Empire. After his death, the empire was divided – Rome and Constantinople. Rome was soon to fall. Alaric, the Arian Goth was to overwhelm Rome in 410. The traditional date of Rome’s final fall is dated 476, usually, when Odacer assumed the throne of the Caesars.

During the thirty-six years that Augustine was Bishop of Hippo, he wrote an incredibly large quantity of theological discourse. His point of view has been the most influential in the entire history of the Christian Church.

He wrestled with every theological and philosophical controversy of his day. In the Christian world, wherever there was a battle between the minds of men, Augustine’s brain and ready pen would be engaged in the contest. He wrote treatises on the Trinity, Original Sin, Baptism, Grace and innumerable other aspects of doctrines. Although Augustine insisted on the authority of the bishops, he also based his theological arguments on the authority of the scripture. Therefore, he was the supporter of both the Roman Catholic doctrine of the authority of the Church and also the Protestant Reformation doctrine of the authority of scripture.

Of considerable interest to us should be the famous controversy between Augustine and the British monk, Pelagius. Pelagius would have appealed to most of us because he was a fore-runner of the kind of religious thinking which has been a continuing emphasis in our liberal religious movements in the last two hundred years. Augustine was convinced man was born depraved, with no hope of salvation other than the Grace of God, a salvation pre-destined for the elect few. Pelagius on the other hand, used reason in arriving at his theology. Pelagius disavowed the doctrine of original sin. He believed every soul born was born pure [and] that human nature, because it is created by God, is basically good. Man possesses the freedom to choose good from evil in his life. Pelagius said, “everything good and everything evil is done by us, not born with us.”

The issue revives again and again in religious history, will do so again, “Does God save man or does man save himself?”

Augustine, fiery, intense, goaded by his own feelings of guilt about his youth, convinced that man was helpless, must always lean for strength on God, not himself, engaged in strenuous literary warfare with Pelagius. The arguments Pelagius used would be more persuasive to us now, but Augustine won the decision then. Pelagius, calm of mind, known for integrity, master of himself, apparently was no match for the dogmatic controversialist, Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. Augustine was able to get the teachings of Pelagius declared officially “heretical.”

Fearing a free market in theological ideas, Augustine insisted on the authority of the Church even to the extent of using force in dealing with alleged unbelievers. Misusing a text from a parable of Jesus, “compel them to come in,” (Luke 14/23) Augustine established the theological groundwork which led to the later persecutions and intolerance of the Medieval Church.

Augustine was extremely influential too in fixing the position of the medieval Catholic Church when he composed his great treatise, THE CITY OF GOD. This book was inspired by the fall of Rome to the Goths under Alaric in 410 A.D. THE CITY OF GOD was a comprehensive statement of the Christian faith seen in the fading light of a world that was dying. Augustine said that there were two kingdoms, one the kingdom of this world, the other the city of God. The city of Rome – the city of man – might be passing. It must decline, said Augustine, in order that the city of God may come to power. even though present times are bad, said Augustine, better times are coming. There will be a golden age when the city of God rules over men. Although this great treatise, “The City of God,” has many intellectual flaws from the viewpoint of the 20th century, the proposition was then a new conception of the old Messianic hope. A winsome standard of faith was established which captured the allegiance of the medieval Church. THE CITY OF GOD had a profound influence too on the coming assertion that the Church overruled the State. The State was subservient to the Church, which was the visible representative of the invisible and spiritual City of God. The City of God was ideal, spiritual, heavenly and superior to the earthly and the material. Augustine saw the City of God and the Catholic Church as identical. This reasoning by Augustine’s capable mind did much to establish principles which later led the medieval papacy to assert the Church should rule the State.

This division affects our lives even today. The present controversies of Church and State can be traced to the conflict of ideologies represented by the encounter of the City of God with the City of Man.

Although Augustine’s theological works did much to influence the future of the Church, perhaps the most intriguing side of his many-faceted character was his mystic piety. In his remarkable “Confessions,” we have a fascinating disclosure of his personality, his feeling of mystic identity with God. His famous first lines where he comprehends the entire relationship with God will endure, “our hears are restless until they find rest in Thee.” There are insights in the Confessions, which are helpful to achieving inner peace. Consider this insight about anger or malice against others, “As if any enemy could be more hurtful than the hatred with which he is incensed against him; or could would more deeply him whom he persecutes than he wounds his own soul by his enmity. Assuredly no science of letters can be so innate as the record of conscience, that his is doing to another, what from another he would be loth to suffer.”

It is also part of candor to say that with all its meditative beauty, when one reads Augustine’s Confessions, one can get the impression that Augustine never did solve his youthful stresses and guilt over boyhood peccadilloes and adult passions. One reads the “Confessions” rather fruitlessly waiting for Augustine to think of others beside himself. The wait is vain. For the most part Augustine thinks only of God and himself. There seems to be little understanding of association with his fellow human beings, serving them and enjoying their company. The only mature friendship he tells about is that with Alypius, and that seems a rather pale association. Even Augustine’s love affairs seem for him to be in a framework of self-reference. Along with all his great mind, Augustine seemed to have a psychic flaw which limited him. Even though he enjoyed a seemingly complete and wonderful mystic fellowship with God, this should have brought him closer to his fellow human beings, rather than separating him from them, as seemed to be the case.

Any appraisal of this Father of the Church is bound to be incomplete, with virtues unmentioned and vices unlisted. Yet, acknowledging all the criticisms that can be made of his dogmas and his self-centeredness, it is also true that when his city, Hippo, of which he was Bishop, was stormed by the Vandals in 430, Augustine remained in the city as month after month the siege went on. Augustine falling seriously ill, requested that the penitential psalms (including 7, 32, 38, 51, 130, 143) be posted on the walls of his bedroom so that he might meditate on them in his dying hours. On August 28, in the year 430, as Gaiseric was leading the Vandals through the gates of Hippo, Augustine died, bringing to a close a long, turbulent life of achievement for the Church he first scorned and then came to love.

The Roman Empire of the State was disintegrating. The Roman Empire of the Church was gathering strength and Augustine was the greatest builder of its theological foundations.