Augustine of
Hippo is arguably the most influential Christian writer of all time, with the
possible exception of Saint Paul whose epistles are the earliest Christian
writings, and which delineated for the nascent church its primary creeds and
basic beliefs concerning who Jesus was and why his life and death were
meaningful to us.
It is
possible that Augustine is more influential than Paul because Augustine’s
interpretation of Paul’s letters have dominated Christian thought since his
time.
Augustine’s
life spanned the mid-fourth century to the mid-fifth century CE. He entered the
Church just at the Christianity was completing its transformation into the
official religion of the Empire, and the indispensable administrative apparatus
of the same. Saint Augustine’s fixed that transformative process into the structures
that we recognize today.
Augustine
was midway through his career as a public servant before he converted to
Christianity, entered the priesthood and was made a bishop.
All of
which happened in rapid succession. It only took him four years to go from
priest to bishop.
His mother
was a Christian, but his father was not, and his father had wanted him to have
a regular career in the traditional Roman mode of life. Augustine adhered to
his father’s wishes for a time, but at the beginning of the fifth Century the Empire
was in a process of conversion and all of the good jobs were going to
Christians. Eventually he converted, only after becoming convinced that he
would have a good career in the Church, and would only encounter dead ends
outside of it.
His gambit
paid off, they put him on the fast track to Bishop.
Augustine
was a prolific writer, in the modern day he is most famous for his Confessions,
and his magnum opus, The City of God.
He worked
tirelessly against heretical groups like the Manicheans, the Pelagians and the
Donatists.
He penned
the controversial doctrine of creation ex nihillo, as apart of his
seminal teaching on original sin. In addition to this, he gave the Church
its teaching on sacramental theology, and he argued for the authority of the Church
in all matters private and public.
His
theology would dominate Christian thinking up until the scholastic period, but
Saint Thomas Aquinas, the most influential of the scholastic theologians leans
heavily on Augustine for nearly all of his views, which is to say that Augustine
continued to exercise an indirect influence on the church as the preeminent
standard of orthodoxy.
Scholastic
theologians often deviated from the logic of Augustine, but on the occasion that
they might draw a different conclusion from Augustine, they often ran afoul of
the hierarchy.
By the time
of the protestant reformation, both Martin Luther and John Calvin believed that
their work represented a realignment of the church with Saint Augustine, and
Saint Augustine’s theology continued to dominate protestant thinking.
In my own
work, Saint Augustine stands as my principle opponent.
His
doctrine of original sin, his doctrine of double predestination, his teaching
that torture can be considered a form of charity if it brings someone to the
point of conversion are anathema to the way, and represent a stark contradistinction
to the life and ministry of Jesus.
Saint Augustine
of Hippo has the title of Angelic Doctor of the Church, but he was a villain,
he was brutal and cruel, and a hypocrite of the highest order. He should be
read in that light.
Given
2020.08.28
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