From Delinquent to Theologian
Instantly as I reached the end of the sentence, it was as if the light of peace was poured into my heart, and all the shades of doubt faded away.
Augustine, Confessions
An elderly man lay upon his deathbed. From beneath the covers he could see selections from the book of Psalms affixed to his walls. In the last ten days of his life, he pondered these words and his existence. The frail figure of Augustine teetered on the edge of the grave, awaiting his transfer from the pains of the earthly world to the joys of the heavenly kingdom. All around him was trouble. The city he loved was under siege. And shortly after his death, the city would fall and the attackers would find that most of the city’s inhabitants were dead or dying of starvation. Aurelius Augustinus, or Augustine, lived a life that forever changed the church. He is one of the few theologians and ministers revered by both Protestants and Catholics.
Augustine was an intellectual giant. Historians and theologians hold him in high regard, yet those who knew him when he was a young man could never have guessed how the troublemaker would change. Early in his life, he was a poor student and found more pleasure in causing trouble than in learning. Born to a minor Roman official father and Monica, a devout Christian mother, Augustine preferred thrills and pleasure over education. He and his friends would steal pears from a neighbor’s orchard not because they were hungry, but because they enjoyed the thrill of it. In most cases, they fed the stolen goods to pigs. His poor work ethic in school brought reprimands and even beatings, but Augustine didn’t care. He was a rebel, a delinquent, a young man addicted to fun and pleasure.
Then came an opportunity to study in Carthage. Carthage was a much larger city than Augustine’s small community of Tagaste, and he was ready to leave behind small town life for the “city lights.” Once out of his Christian mother’s reach and care, Augustine did what many young people do when initially freed from the restrictions of home life: he partied. While still in his teen years, Augustine took a lover and became a father. Marrying the woman was out of the question, as this would damage his future career.
While he was indulging his passions, Augustine also developed a love for philosophy and rhetoric. His past actions troubled him, and now on his own, free to do whatever he chose, he began to reflect on his life choices. Perhaps he was growing up, or perhaps having a child of his own sobered him. Regardless, he set aside some of the frivolity that had consumed him. His intellect grew hungry. Where once he had to be punished and beaten to learn, he now did so because of his growing love of knowledge. The fervent prayers of his mother were also certainly a factor in the changes taking place in Augustine’s life. She prayed for him constantly and her greatest desire was to see him commit to Christ.
Yet Augustine was not a converted man. He wanted nothing to do with his mother’s faith. To him Christianity was the religion of the uneducated and simpleminded. But despite Augustine’s resolute pursuit of his education and apparent disdain of his mother’s faith, he was profoundly unhappy. He had freedom. He had a mistress. He had his learning, and he was gaining a following of students. Still, he was unhappy. Worse. He was miserable and had no idea how to fix himself. It was a struggle he’d endure for years, even as he maintained a successful vocation as a teacher in Carthage, then Rome, and then Milan.
Unhappiness, although unpleasant, can lead to something beneficial. Augustine had what he wanted, but it wasn’t enough. Guilt dogged his steps. He sought truth, and although he had mastered the great philosophers and the demanding art of rhetoric, there remained a hole in his life. He was a man who didn’t like to be controlled, something he certainly proved in his teen years, but he was honest enough to acknowledge that he was a captive—not to a person but to his own lusts and passions. He was a man at war with himself. This idea of the good waging war with the bad drew him to a doctrinally twisted offshoot of Christianity: Manichaeism. Founded by a man named Mani, this belief system saw everything as distinctly black and white, light and dark. This resonated with Augustine. He longed for the light but sensed his soul was in the dark. Augustine began raising questions about certain aspects of Manichaeism, and his fellow followers told him to wait for Faustus of Mileve (modern-day Algeria), who was the current leader of the movement. He did, but he was disappointed in the man’s answers. Faustus and Manichaeism didn’t measure up to Augustine’s intellectual expectations, and ultimately failed to answer the deep yearnings within him for truth. Augustine would eventually write a treatise against Manichaeism, exposing it for the faulty religion that it was.
Manichaeism had failed to help. And philosophy, as much as Augustine loved it, didn’t satisfy his deep hunger. So he continued his search. He traveled to Rome to teach, and eventually found his way to Milan. There, he met a man of powerful reputation: Ambrose.
Ambrose was renowned for being an excellent speaker, and as a lifelong student of rhetoric, Augustine wanted to see if the man was everything he was reputed to be. He was. In Ambrose, Augustine found a man in whom Christianity and supreme intelligence lived in peace. Ambrose proved that Christianity was not only compatible with intelligence and learning but complemented them.
However, Augustine was not a quick convert. He still had powerful passions that drove him. In his book Confessions he admits to a youthful prayer, “Give me chastity and continence—but not yet.”1
There was also another influence in his life: Christian monks. The monks had given up all their worldly possessions and surrendered normal life with wives and family for the monastery or, in some cases, for living in isolation in desolate places like the desert. How could monks, many uneducated in Augustine’s view, show so much discipline and self-control when he was a puppet of his own desires?
A Child’s Voice
In 386, Augustine was in another wrestling match with himself. He paced the garden outside his home, grappling with a nagging spiritual need. Internal struggles can be as vicious as physical ones. Augustine knew this. He was not a man just walking the garden and “thinking things through.” He was deep in an emotional and spiritual quagmire. As he fought through the despair and the agony, he heard a child’s voice: “Take up and read. Take up and read.” It was songlike. He assumed it came from the neighbors, but was unable to tell if it was the voice of a young boy or girl. Regardless of the source, Augustine saw it as a direct message from God.
Nearby was a copy of Paul’s epistle to the Romans. He opened it and his eyes fell on two verses: Romans 13:13–14.
Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.
The world receded from him and Augustine could only focus on Paul’s words. These words, at this moment, struck him as if they were written just for him. “The instant I reached the end of the sentence, it seemed the light of peace was poured into my heart, and all shades of doubt faded away.”2
The interplay of the garden setting, Augustine’s inner turmoil and regrets for a misspent life, the singsong voice of a child chanting a simple line, and immediate access to just the right words at just the right time brought forth an immediate and permanent change in Augustine. He was, at that moment, made new in right relationship with Christ—a Christian.
Loss
Augustine’s mother, Monica, had recently joined him in Milan. It was a different person who walked back into the house and told his mother about what had just happened. For Monica, the years of ceaseless prayers made on behalf of her son were answered. Augustine then withdrew from Milan to a villa in Cassiciacum with his mother, son, some students, and a few others, and stayed there for about seven months. It was in this villa that he prepared himself for his new Christian life. On Easter, Bishop Ambrose, the man who proved to Augustine that a Christian could be an intellectual, baptized Augustine and his son, Adeodatus.
In 387, Monica fell ill with a fever and died in Augustine’s presence. She was fifty-six and he thirty-three. His record of her passing is heartrending:
I closed her eyelids, and sorrow beyond measure filled my heart and would have overflowed in tears. But by a strong effort of will I had no tears.
It was not fitting that her funeral should be conducted with moaning and weeping, for such is normal when death is seen as only misery or as the complete end of existence. But she had not died in misery, and death was not her end.
Of the one fact we were certain by reason of her character, of the other by our Faith.3
After her death, Augustine and his son returned to Rome for a time. This was followed by travels to previous homes in Carthage and Tagaste. It was on one of his many trips that Augustine’s personal world would be upended again. His son, just seventeen (the same age Augustine was when Adeodatus was born), died of unknown causes. Despite the tragic loss of his mother and son so close together, and despite dealing with his own debilitating illness, Augustine remained faithful.
Pressed into the Priesthood
He returned to North Africa and adopted a monastic life. In the city of Hippo, he attended services led by Bishop Valerius. On one such visit, the bishop preached a message laying out the church’s need for priests. Augustine had no plans to be a part of the clergy, but the congregation had a different idea. They insisted he be ordained. The thought of this brought Augustine to tears. Still, he had no desire to be a priest. Yet, at age forty-three, and despite his initial resistance, Augustine found himself at the threshold of what would become thirty-three years of service as a priest of the church.
Soon after his ordination, at the request of Valerius, Augustine became the assistant bishop. When Valerius died, Augustine became the bishop of Hippo.
Augustine threw himself into the work, writing unceasingly, and preaching as often as twice a day, five days a week.
Augustine was tremendously influential in his years of service. He stood with one foot in the classical world of philosophy and the other in the changing world of the church. As a teacher he had debated heresies, but as a bishop he had to confront them. Much of his writing focused on defending right doctrine and challenging the teaching of several cult groups and unorthodox sects.
His first battle was with the Manichaeans, the group he had once been a part of. Manichaeans were similar to the Gnostics, dividing the world into light and dark, spiritual and physical. This sect taught that Jesus had no physical body (because physical was bad) and therefore did not die on the cross. To them God was neither omnipotent, nor fully Creator. These ideas contradicted the Bible.
Augustine also took a stand against the Donatists, who saw the church as filled with flawed priests and felt there should be a separate, pure church. The movement began almost a century before, when Emperor Diocletian persecuted the church and demanded, among other things, the burning of the Scriptures. Christians could avoid persecution by turning in Bibles. Some did, including some church leaders. After the persecution ended, some returned to their positions in the church, infuriating those who had suffered and lost loved ones to the persecution. It raised a theological problem. Could such flawed church leaders administer the sacraments? Augustine argued against the idea of a separate, pure church. He wasn’t opposed to pursuing purity, but because perfection was not possible, he could not align with the notion of a “pure church.” More importantly, he argued that God’s blessing was not dependent on the priests’ purity but on God’s faithfulness. There would always be a mix of faithful and flawed priests. He drew on Jesus’ parable of the wheat and tares. A tare is a plant that looks very much like wheat until it matures. In Jesus’ day it was impossible to remove the tares without uprooting the wheat. The separation occurred only after the harvest. Augustine’s point was simple: God will do the judging, not the Donatists.
Additional important doctrine was defined when Augustine faced off with Pelagius. Pelagius was a British monk who came to North Africa via Rome. Augustine took issue with Pelagius’ belief that sin was not transmitted from Adam to all men and women. Pelagius believed that everyone sinned, but purely by choice. He denied a connection between sin and humankind’s condition. He taught (and some still do) that a person could live a sinless life without the grace of God.
Augustine argued that original sin was passed from Adam to everyone, man needed the help of God to come to salvation (he felt that this was what happened to him in the garden in Milan), and no one came to faith unless God first called him. The Catholic Church would later declare Pelagius’ teaching as heresy at the Council of Carthage (418), and it was denounced.
Augustine’s Pen
Augustine faced much more than doctrinal turmoil. In 410, Alaric and his German Visigoths led forces against Rome. Overwhelmed, city officials asked for terms of surrender. Alaric wasn’t shy: “All your gold; all your silver; all your German slaves.” He and his men plundered the city but then, because he considered himself a Christian—belonging to a sect called Arianism—Alaric returned all valuables taken from churches. He died shortly after Rome fell. His army, however, continued to North Africa. The Visigoths would later take Augustine’s beloved Hippo.
Many had fled Rome, traveling to North Africa and to Hippo. Augustine ministered to these displaced people the best he could. The most difficult task was answering a question they all asked. The pagan residents of Rome believed that the ancient gods were punishing them for allowing Christian emperors to rule and the church to thrive. It was more than an idle thought. Some called for a return to the gods who were worshiped when Rome was great.
Augustine decided to answer this prevailing and culturally relevant question, spending sixteen years in writing an answer in the form of the classic book City of God. He wanted Christians to understand that they now lived in the City of the World but would eternally live in the City of God. It was a tale of two cities, the one that awaits and the temporary one in which we all live. The book is one of the most beloved of all ancient literature and remains a reminder that this life is not the end of the story but only the beginning. He encouraged Christians not to dwell on what is but on the city that is to come. Augustine couldn’t stop the Visigoths, but he could focus Christian minds on something greater than what they were losing.
Augustine penned other works, over one hundred books, five hundred sermons, and two hundred letters. Like many of the great church leaders, he changed the world of his time and the world to come through his writing.
Perhaps his best-known book is Confessions, which tells his life story and conversion. He wrote it as if penning a letter to God. If Confessions is his autobiography, then Revisions (Retractions) can be called his intellectual autobiography. In Revisions he reviews and corrects his earlier writings.
He also wrote books on doctrine, philosophy, biblical interpretation, and the history of heresies. Augustine filled the world of his day with his intellect, his presence, and his written words—words still read today.
Protestants are fond of Augustine because he emphasized the grace of God; Catholics love his support of the church and the sacraments. Some of his teachings would later be abused, but that was through no fault of his own.
His life story is also an inspiration. His rebellious days, his constant search for truth, his misdeeds and his admission of them, his inner turmoil, and his struggles with his desires speak to many believers today, people who struggle with many of the same sins and compulsions. He was a fractured man made whole by Christ. He did not seek power, but when it was thrust upon him he was dedicated and passionate in fulfilling his duties.