Augustine, (Aurelius Augustinus), bishop of Hippo, was born at Tagaste, in Numidia, Nov. 13, 354. His mother, Monica, was a Christian and a woman of piety, who took care to have her son instructed in the true faith and placed among the catechumens. His father was as yet unbaptized, and appears to have cared more to advance his son in worldly knowledge: he spared nothing for his education; and, after giving him the rudiments of grammar at Tagaste, sent him to Madaura, a town in the neighborhood, and afterward removed him to Carthage, to learn rhetoric (this was about the end of the year 371); and here he first imbibed the Manichaean errors. He also fell into immoral habits, of which he afterward gave a minute account in his remarkable “Confessions.” In 383 he left Carthage, against the will of his mother, and repaired to Rome; and, still adhering to his sect, he lodged at the house of a Manichaean, where he fell ill. After his recovery be was sent by Symmachus, the prefect of the city, to Milan, where the inhabitants were in want of a professor of rhetoric. Here he came into intercourse with Ambrose, and was in a short time so convinced by his doctrine that he resolved to forsake the Manichaean sect: this design he communicated to his mother, who came to Milan to see him. “Augustine listened to the preaching of Ambrose frequently, but the more he was forced to admire his eloquence, the more he guarded himself against persuasion. Obstinate in seeking truth outside of her only sanctuary, agitated by the stings of his conscience, bound by habit, drawn by fear, subjugated by passion, touched with the beauty of virtue, seduced by the charms of vice, victim of both, never satisfied in his false delights, struggling constantly against the errors of his sect and the mysteries of religion, an unfortunate running from rock to rock to escape shipwreck, he flees from the light which pursues him — such is the picture by which he himself describes his conflicts in his Confessions. At last, one day, torn by the most violent struggles, his face bathed in tears, which flowed involuntarily, he fled for solitude and calm to a retired spot in his garden. There, throwing himself on the ground, he implored, though confusedly, the aid of Heaven. All at once he seemed to hear a voice, as if coming from a neighboring house, which said to him, Tolle; lege: Take and read. Never before had such emotion seized his soul. Surprised, beside himself, he asks himself in vain whence came the voice, or what he was to read. He was sustained by a force he knew not, and sought his friend Alype. A book was placed before him-the epistles of St. Paul. Augustine opens it at hazard, and falls upon this passage of the apostle: ‘Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness... But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.’ Augustine needed not any further reading. Hardly had he finished this passage before a ray of divine light broke upon him, enlightening his understanding, dissipating all his shadows, and kindling in his heart a flame of celestial fire. The conversion of Augustine was fully as striking and efficacious as St. Paul’s had been. All the apostle’s spirit had passed in an instant into the new proselyte. He was then in his thirty-second year. When once again with his mother, the virtuous Monica, to whom his wanderings had cost so many tears, he related to her all that had passed, and also communicated his new resolutions, with that peaceful firmness which changes not. Monica heard this consoling recital with lively joy. All these particulars he himself gives in his Confessions, with a charm and simplicity which have, before or since, never been surpassed.” After remaining for the space of two years among the catechumens, he was baptized by Ambrose at Easter, 387. Soon after his baptism, having given up his profession, he resolved to return to his own country; and on his way thither, while at Ostia, his mother died. About this time he wrote his treatises De Moribus Eccl. Catholicae et de Moribus Manichceorum, also De Quantitate Animr. He arrived in Africa at the end of 388, and removed to Tagaste, where he dwelt for three years with some of his friends, occupied solely with prayer, meditation, and study. At this period he wrote the treatises De Genesi contra Manichaeos and De Vera Religione. In 391 he went to Hippo; and while there, in spite of his tears and reluctance, the people of that city chose him to fill the office of priest in their church, and brought him to Valerius, their bishop, that he might ordain him. When priest, he instituted a monastery in the church of Hippo, where he entirely devoted himself to works of piety and devotion, and to teaching. Valerius, the bishop, contrary to the custom of the African churches, permitted Augustine to preach in his place, even when he himself was present; and, when this was objected to, he excused himself on the ground that, being himself a Greek, he could not so well preach in Latin. After this the practice became more general. About 393 Augustine wrote the treatise De duabus animabus, contra Manichceos. In 395 he was elected colleague to Valerius in his episcopacy, and consecrated Bishop of Hippo, contrary to the canons of the church. The duties of his office were discharged with the greatest fidelity; but, amid all his labors, he found time for the composition of his most elaborate works. His treatise De Libero Arbitrio was finished in 395; the Confessionum Libri XIII in 398; most of the treatises against the Donatists between 400 and 415; those against the Pelagians between 412 and 428. The De Civitate Dei was begun in 413 and finished in 426. The singular candor of Augustine is shown in his Retractationes (written in 428), in which he explains and qualifies his former writings, and not unfrequently acknowledges his mistakes opinion. In 430, the Vandals, under Genseric, laid siegeto Hippo, and in the third month of the siege (August 28) Augustine died, in his 76th year.
His whole career, after his profession of the Christian faith, was consistent with his high calling; the only faults with which he can be charged are an occasional undue severity in controversy and the share which he bore in the persecution of the Donatists (q.v.). His intellect was acute, vigorous, and comprehensive; his style rapid and forcible, but not remarkable for purity or elegance. “Of all the fathers of the Latin Church” (says M. Villemain, in his Tableau de l'Eloquence de la chaire au quatrieme siecle, 1849, 8vo), “St. Augustine brought the highest degree of imagination in theology, and the most eloquence and even sensibility in scholasticism. Give him another century, place him in the highest civilization, and a man never will have appeared endowed with a vaster or more flexible genius. Metaphysics, history, antiquities, science, and manners, Augustine had embraced them all. He writes on music as well as on the freedom of the will; he explains the intellectual phenomenon of the memory as well as reasons on the fall of the Roman Empire. His subtile and vigorous mind has often consumed in mystical problems an amount of sagacity which would suffice for the most sublime conceptions. His eloquence, tinged with affectation and barbarisms, is often fresh and simple. His austere morality displeased the corrupt casuists whom Pascal had so severely handled. His works are not only the perennial source of that scientific theology which has agitated Europe for so many ages, but also the most vivid image of Christian society at the end of the fourth century.” “If we contemplate Augustine as a scholar, our judgment of him will vary according to the different demands we make of a theologian. If we compare the famous bishop with learned theologians of the present time, he can scarcely deserve the name of such a one; for we shall not readily reckon among learned theologians any one who knows nothing at all of Hebrew and but little of Greek. But if we estimate Augustine according to his own period, as it is proper we should, he was by all means a learned man, and was surpassed by but few, and among the Latin fathers perhaps only by Jerome, though by him in a high degree. Thus much, however, is certain, Augustine had more genius than learning, more wit and penetration than fundamental science. Augustine’s was a philosophical and especially a logical mind. His works sufficiently prove his talent for system-making and a logical development of ideas. We also find in them much philosophical speculation peculiar to himself. But the value of those speculations is not to be highly rated, since he was far from being so much of a metaphysician in general as he was of a logician. Nor was he wanting in a knowledge of philosophical systems and the speculations of others. His weakest point as a scholar was in a knowledge of languages. In this he was surpassed even by Pelagius, who was only a layman; for although, as before remarked, he was not entirely ignorant of Greek, his knowledge of it was very limited, and we meet with a multitude of oversights on this account. Hence he generally used only the Latin translation of the Bible, which is so often faulty; and even in the New Testament he recurs but seldom to the original text. His ignorance and incapacity in expounding the Scriptures, at least of the Old Testament, he himself acknowledges (Retract. 1, 18). Hence he very often founds his arguments from the sacred books on erroneous interpretations. He also employed philosophical reasons to support his positive doctrines, and strove to unite the rational with the revealed belief, as Christian theologians had before attempted to do from the time of Justin. His supernatural system he defended not only with exegetical, but also with philosophical weapons. His knowledge of the opinions of the earlier fathers often failed him. In a letter to Jerome (Ep. 67; Omh Hieron. Vall. ed.), he frankly confesses that he knows not the errors charged upon Origen, and begs Jerome to point them out to him.c. His taste was not sufficiently formed by the study of the classics. Hence his style (though we find some good remarks of his on grammar, and his ability for eloquence is sufficiently manifest in particular passages) was on the whole defective in purity and elegance, as could not but be expected in an age when the study of Cicero had begun to be regarded as a sin. He also believed that rhetorical euphony was rather hurtful than beneficial to the presentation of Christian truths, as they thus lose their dignity. In other respects he did not despise the liberal arts, but believed they could be profitably used only when those who practice them are inspired by the Christian spirit (Ep. 101, ad Memorium.” — Wiggers, Augustinism and Pelagianism, chap. 1.) His knowledge of Greek was moderate, and his biblical criticisms are therefore of comparatively little value (see Clausen, Augustinus S. Scr. interpres,
Hafn. 1828); but as a theologian he made a deep impression upon his own age, and, indeed, upon the whole theology of the church down to the present time. “His influence may be compared with that of Origen in the East, but it was more general and enduring in the West. He was one of those great men, of world-wide celebrity, whose agency is not limited to their own times, but is felt afresh at various epochs. in the lapse of centuries. His position in reference to theology was similar to that of Plato and Aristotle in the department of philosophy. On the one hand, the development of the Catholic dogma which appears in the writings of the schoolmen proceeded from him, and, on the other hand, a reaction of the pure Christian consciousness against the foreign elements of the Catholic dogma. Those tendencies within the pale of the Catholic Church from which a new Christian life emanated connect themselves with him. Even the more complete reaction at the Reformation, and the various revivals which the evangelical church has experienced, may be traceable to the same source. He resembled Origen in his turn for speculation, but surpassed him in originality, depth, and acuteness. Both passed through Platonism in the process of their culture; he did not, however, like Origen, mingle the Christian and Platonic elements, but developed the principles of Christianity independently of Platonism, and even in opposition to it. But Origen excelled him in greater mental freedom and erudite historical culture, while Augustine’s mind was fettered by a definite church-system. The union of their mental elements would, without doubt, have made the most complete church teacher. Nevertheless, many qualities were united in Augustine, which we find scattered in separate tendencies of theological development, and hence we see the various periods of the church shadowed forth in his mental career” (Neander, Hist. of Dogmas, 2, 258).
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Author: McClintock and Strong Cyclopedia
Keywords: Augustine
Bible reference(s): 1 Corinthians 4:7, Romans 9:18
Source: John McClintock and James Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.
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