Saint Augustine

St. Augustine was born in 354 in North Africa. As a young man in Carthage he led an unsettled life both in the philosophy he professed and in his moral life. Later in Milan, Augustine heard St. Ambrose speak and as time passed the Bishop's words filtered his heart and mind until, after a long struggle within himself, he was baptised.

After his conversion Augustine became convinced that his vocation was to be dedicated to prayer and scholarship in the service of Christ, in a monastic setting. In 388 he established a community of lay-monks at Tagaste, his birth place. The fame of his piety and learning spread until in 391 he was elected priest, and later Bishop, by the Christian community at Hippo, where he set up another community. As a great Doctor of the Church Augustine still influences the philosophy, theology and spirituality of the church.

The origins of the Augustinian Order. In 1243 Pope Innocent IV decreed that several groups of hermits in the Tuscany region of Northern Italy should unite into a single Order following the Rule of St. Augustine. Thus the Order came into being in March 1244. In 1256 there was a further unification with more groups of hermits. This union established the Order in a modern-day sense because it entailed a radical change of life-style in that it occasioned the movement of the friars in to city areas where they supported themselves by begging.

Until the 16th. century the Order enjoyed steady growth until there were 16,000 Brothers in forty provinces. After the Reformation it went into decline and at the beginning of last century there were scarcely 1,000 Brothers. Today in the twenty-first century the Order now has about 3,700 members throughout the world.

Accepted by most scholars to be the most important figure in the ancient Western church, St. Augustine was born in Tagaste, Numidia in North Africa. His mother was a Christian, but his father remained a pagan until late in life. After a rather unremarkable childhood, marred only by a case of stealing pears, Augustine drifted through several philosophical systems before converting to Christianity at the age of thirty-one. At the age of nineteen, Augustine read Cicero's Hortensius, an experience that led him into the fascination with philosophical questions and methods that would remain with him throughout his life. After a few years as a Manichean, he became attracted to the more sceptical positions of the Academic philosophers. Although tempted in the direction of Christianity upon his arrival at Milan in 383, he turned first to neoplatonism, During this time, Augustine fathered a child by a mistress. This period of exploration, including its youthful excesses (perhaps somewhat exaggerated) are recorded in Augustine's most widely read work, the Confessions.

During his youth, Augustine had studied rhetoric at Carthage, a discipline that he used to gain employment teaching in Carthage and then in Rome and Milan, where he met Ambrose who is credited with effecting Augustine's conversion and who baptised Augustine in 387. Returning to his homeland soon after his conversion, he was ordained a presbyter in 391, taking the position as bishop of Hippo in 396, a position which he held until his death.

Besides the Confessions, Augustine's most celebrated work is his De Civitate Dei (On the City of God), a study of the relationship between Christianity and secular society, which was inspired by the fall of Rome to the Visigoths in 410. Among his other works, many are polemical attacks on various heresies: Against Faustus, the Manichean; On Baptism; Against the Donatists; and many attacks on Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism. Other works include treatises On the Trinity; On Faith, Hope, and Love; On Christian Doctrine; and some early dialogues.

St. Augustine stands as a powerful advocate for orthodoxy and of the episcopacy as the sole means for the dispensing of saving grace. In the light of later scholarship, Augustine can be seen to serve as a bridge between the ancient and medieval worlds. A review of his life and work, however, shows him as an active mind engaging the practical concerns of the churches he served.