St Augustine of Hippo
The Triumph of Saint Augustine painted by Claudio Coello, c. 1664
ABOUT HIM
- St Augustine of Hippo was born in 354 in the municipium of Thagaste in the Roman province of Numidia to st Monnica a devout Christian and a pagan father who converted to Christianity on his deathbed.
- At the age of 11, he was sent to school at Madaurus about 31 kilometres south of Thagaste. There he became familiar with Latin literature, as well as pagan beliefs and practices.
- At the age of 17, Augustine went to Carthage to continue his education in rhetoric. In spite of the good warnings of his mother, as a youth Augustine lived a hedonistic lifestyle for a time
- For some time Augustine taught grammar at Thagaste during 373 and 374. The following year he moved to Carthage to conduct a school of rhetoric and remained there for the next nine years.
- in 383, Disturbed by unruly students in Carthage, he moved to establish a school in Rome, where he believed the best and brightest rhetoricians practiced,
- In Rome, he reportedly turned away from Manichaeanism, embracing the scepticism of the New Academy movement. At Milan, his mother's religiosity, Augustine's own studies in Neoplatonism, and his friend Simplicianus all urged him towards Christianity.
- Augustine arrived in Milan and visited Ambrose, having heard of his reputation as an orator. Like Augustine, Ambrose was a master of rhetoric, but older and more experienced.Soon, their relationship grew, Augustine was very much influenced by Ambrose, even more than by his own mother and others he admired.
- In late August of 386,[d] at the age of 31, having heard of Ponticianus's and his friends' first reading of the life of Anthony of the Desert, Augustine converted to Christianity. As Augustine later told it, his conversion was prompted by hearing a child's voice say "take up and read" (Latin: tolle, lege). Resorting to the Sortes Sanctorum, he opened a book of St. Paul's writings (codex apostoli, 8.12.29) at random and read Romans 13: 13–14: Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.
- 24–25 April 387 Ambrose baptized Augustine and his son Adeodatus in Milan
- A year later, in 388, Augustine completed his apology On the Holiness of the Catholic Church. That year, also, Adeodatus and Augustine returned home to Africa. Augustine's mother Monica died at Ostia, Italy, as they prepared to embark for Africa.when in Augustine then sold his patrimony and gave the money to the poor. He only kept the family house, which he converted into a monastic foundation for himself and a group of friends.
- In 391 Augustine was ordained a priest in Hippo Regius (now Annaba), in Algeria. He was especially interested in discovering how his previous rhetorical training in Italian schools would help the Christian Church achieve its objective of discovering and teaching the different scriptures in the Bible.
- In 395, he was made coadjutor Bishop of Hippo and became full Bishop shortly thereafter,[97] hence the name "Augustine of Hippo"; and he gave his property to the church of Thagaste.[98] He remained in that position until his death in 430.
- Augustine was canonized by popular acclaim, and later recognized as a Doctor of the Church in 1298 by Pope Boniface VIII. His feast day is 28 August, the day on which he died.
His works
- He wrote his autobiographical Confessions in 397–398. His work The City of God was written to console his fellow Christians shortly after the Visigoths had sacked Rome in 410.
- In his late treatise On Care to Be Had for the Dead, section 5 (420) he exhorted respect for the body on the grounds it belonged to the very nature of the human person.[112] Augustine's favourite figure to describe body-soul unity is marriage: caro tua, coniunx tua – your body is your wife.
- In The Literal Interpretation of Genesis Augustine argued God had created everything in the universe simultaneously and not over a period of six days. He argued the six-day structure of creation presented in the Book of Genesis represents a logical framework, rather than the passage of time in a physical way – it would bear a spiritual, rather than physical, meaning, which is no less literal.
- Augustine is said to have held an understanding of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist by some, saying that Christ's statement, "This is my body" referred to the bread he carried in his hands,[180][181] and that Christians must have faith the bread and wine are in fact the body and blood of Christ, despite what they see with their eyes.