Christian Ethics 4 Report

LIFE OF ST.

AUGUSTINE OF
HIPPO
St. Augustine
• Also called Saint Augustine of Hippo, original Latin
name Aurelius Augustinus.
• Born November 13, 354, Tagaste, Numidia [now Souk Ahras, Algeria]—died
August 28, 430, Hippo Regius [now Annaba, Algeria]
• Feast day August 28
• Bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430, one of the Latin Fathers of the Church and
perhaps the most significant Christian thinker after St. Paul.
St. Augustine
• Augustine’s adaptation of classical thought to Christian
teaching created a theological system of great power and lasting
influence.
• His numerous written works, the most important of which are
Confessions (c. 400) and The City of God (c. 413–426), shaped
the practice of biblical exegesis and helped lay the foundation
for much of medieval and modern Christian thought. In
Roman Catholicism he is formally recognized as a
doctor of the church.
Written Works
Written Works
Written Works
• Augustine is remarkable for what he did and extraordinary for what he wrote. If none of
his written works had survived, he would still have been a figure to be reckoned with,
but his stature would have been more nearly that of some of his contemporaries.
However, more than five million words of his writings survive, virtually all displaying
the strength and sharpness of his mind (and some limitations of range and learning) and
some possessing the rare power to attract and hold the attention of readers in both his
day and ours. His distinctive theological style shaped Latin Christianity in a way
surpassed only by Scripture itself. His work continues to hold contemporary relevance,
in part because of his membership in a religious group that was dominant in the West in
his time and remains so today.
• Intellectually, Augustine represents the most influential adaptation of the
ancient Platonic tradition with Christian ideas that ever occurred in the
Latin Christian world. Augustine received the Platonic past in a far more
limited and diluted way than did many of his Greek-speaking
contemporaries, but his writings were so widely read and imitated
throughout Latin Christendom that his particular synthesis of Christian,
Roman, and Platonic traditions defined the terms for much later tradition
and debate.
• Both modern Roman Catholic and Protestant Christianity owe much to
Augustine, though in some ways each community has at times been
embarrassed to own up to that allegiance in the face of irreconcilable
elements in his thought. For example, Augustine has been cited as both a
champion of human freedom and an articulate defender of divine
predestination, and his views on sexuality were humane in intent but have
often been received as oppressive in effect.
FAMILY and EDUCATIONAL
BACKGROUND
• Augustine’s parents were of the respectable class of Roman society, free to
live on the work of others, but their means were sometimes straitened. They
managed, sometimes on borrowed money, to acquire a first-class education for
Augustine, and, although he had at least one brother and one sister, he seems
to have been the only child sent off to be educated. He studied first in Tagaste,
then in the nearby university town of Madauros, and finally at Carthage, the
great city of Roman Africa. After a brief stint teaching in Tagaste, he returned
to Carthage to teach rhetoric, the premier science for the Roman gentleman,
and he was evidently very good at it.
• His father named Patricio was a pagan, violent, drinker
and infamous official at the service of the Empire. His
mother Monica, on the other hand, was sweet and self-
sacrificing, living her life under the Christian religion.
She educated her son in her religion, although, she did
not baptize him.
LET’S KNOW MORE ABOUT ST.
AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
• Agustín had an irascible personality, a superb and unruly attitude, although
exceptionally intelligent. For this reason, he took charge of his studies,
although he was slow to apply them; After completing the grammar classes
in his native land, he studied the liberal arts in Metauro and then rhetoric in
Carthage. In his youth, he certainly did not follow the moral precepts instilled
by his mother and until he was 32 years old, he led a licentious life, clinging
to the Manichean heresy.( Manichean heresy is a dualistic philosophy dividing the world between good
and evil principles or regarding matter intrinsically evil and mind as intrinsically good)
• At eighteen, Agustín met his first concubine, with whom he had a son
whom they named Adeodato. He was not really an exemplary father,
he lived among the excesses, he had an inordinate fondness for
theater and other public spectacles, he was also blamed for some
robberies. This lifestyle made him renounce his mother’s religion. He
claimed that Christianity was an imposed faith and was not founded
on reason. He began to take an interest in philosophy, and in these
postulates found accommodation for some time, he leaned towards
moderate skepticism.
• However, in Carthage joins a group that preached Manichaean
dogma, from that moment he was able to resolve his many
concerns about various moral problems, which would accompany
him throughout his life, was determining his adherence to
Manichaeism, the religion of fashion at that time. Basically, he
argued that there are two principles of all things, dualism, a
principle of good and another of evil. The first has created spiritual
things and the second the materials.
• In his search for the truth he studied the epistles of St. Paul, through them
he discovered the affirmation that only the grace of Christ can save man, a
doctrine that was another pillar of his thinking in the future. Over time he
gave himself up to burning hymns, fasting, and various abstinences. Fully
converted, in 387, when he was 33 years old, he was baptized by St.
Ambrose and consecrated himself definitively to the service of God. He
began to share more time with his mother, to share the word of God,
unfortunately, the time was short because death interrupted it.
• His philosophical works such as the Soliloquies, the Confessions and The City
of God, are the sample of his extraordinary testimonies of faith and his
theological wisdom. His dissertations usually had as a central theme the
relationship of the soul, lost by sin and saved by divine grace. In short, man
contains an immortal rational soul that serves, as an instrument, a material,
and mortal body. Hence his character essentially spiritualist, against the
cosmological tendency of Greek philosophy. Augustine of Hippo lived 40
years of his life consecrated to the service of God, he died at the age of 72, in
the year 430.
• The thought of Saint Augustine of Hippo
extended a bridge between the classical world
and the medieval world, also laid the foundations
of philosophy and Christian doctrine.
ST AUGUSTINE’S QUOTES
THANK YOU!!!!

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LIFE OF ST.

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