do you know who SAINT AUGUSTINE was?

Saint Augustine is considered the greatest Father of the Church, a great philosopher and theologian; the work of this saint was fundamental for the posterior development of philosophy, theology and western thought in general.

		Saint Augustine and Saint Monica

Augustine was born in Thagaste (Algeria) on November 13 of the year 354 A.D. His father, Patricius, was a pagan. His mother, Saint Monica was an ideal wife and Christian mother: her virtues were exemplary, her sufferings and her prayers would achieve, first the conversion of her husband, who was baptized at the hour of his death, and, later, that of her sons. Saint Monica brought about a decisive influence over Augustine. Augustine testified to this as his best eulogy to his mother in his Confessions. Nevertheless, as he himself narrated in the said work, the youth of Augustine could be distinguished by a certain licentious conduct, but accompanied with an incessant search for the truth.

He did his studies in the city where he was born, Thagaste, and later in Milan and Carthage. When he was 17 years old, he had a concubine, with whom he had a son. The reading of the works of Hortensius by Cicero, awakened his liking to philosophy. He was a puritan-inspired Manichaean from nineteen years old to twenty-nine.

Deceived by Manichaeism, which thought of the world as an opposition sustained between the forces of good and evil, Augustine went to Rome in the year 383 and opened a school of rhetoric and dedicated himself to academic scepticism.

The following year, he gained the chair of rhetoric at Milan. In that city, he procured to hear the sermons of Saint Ambrose, who influenced greatly the life of Augustine changing in him his opinion about the Catholic Church, the faith, the interpretation of the Bible and the image of God.

He had contacts with a group of Neo-Platonist in the capital, one member of which made him read the works of Plotinus and Porphyry. These works moulded his intellectual conversion.

The conversion of the heart arrived a little bit later, in September of 386, in an unexpected way. The following year, his mother, Saint Monica, whose prayers and sufferings were instrumental in his conversion, died in Ostia, Italy. Her feast is celebrated the day before that of her son, on the 27th of August.

Desirous to be useful for the Church, Augustine returned to the continent where he was born, Africa, and he started to outline a reform of the Christian life. Three years later, he was ordained priest in Hippo to assist his old bishop Valerius. This, in 396, consecrated Augustine bishop, and when Valerius died the following year, Augustine succeeded him in his Episcopal seat. Under his guidance, the Church in Africa, although ruined, recovered the initiative.

Augustine went on disarming and unmasking the more extended heresies during his time. The last years of his life was perturbed by wars. The Vandals sacked his city and three months later, in August 28 of 430, he died while still possessing the full use of his faculties and literary talents.

He was endowed with good health and strong body, as can be witnessed in his activities, work, journeys, and serene old-age; his sicknesses were due to constant and excessive fatigue, asceticism, and apostolate. The aspiration of his life was the Truth for all men. Always adapting to the circumstances, he lived fighting, although he was of serene and gentle character. He converted his small diocese as the heart of Christianity. Today, his mortal remains rest in Pavia. He is usually represented dressed as a bishop or a monk, carrying in his hand a book, a heart or a church.

Almost all of his numerous works reached us in good condition. In those works, he dealt with diverse topics, from the things regarding his life, in the Confessions and the Soliloquies, to various works about morals and asceticism, going from exegetical compositions to apologetics – among them the City of God – and with arguments against Manichaeism and the principal heresies of his time.

The vocation of Saint Augustine, his mission, consisted in gathering, coordinating, assimilating and transmitting two cultures: the Greco-Roman and the Judeo-Christian. He brought it forth perfectly that he is considered a genius of Europe. He marked a new pathway to thinking and his influence to Christian spirituality has been notable.

He possesses excellent human qualities: great intelligence for synthesis and analysis, passionate and valiant will, tender and manly sensibility, exuberant vitality, creative imagination, inexhaustible initiative, enchanting style, and sense of humour.

He was the first philosopher who adopted a rational theology applying it to three radical problems: existence, truth, being and good; and almost the first theologian who trusted in philosophy, confronting the dogmatisms and the illusory fideisms, and considering human understanding as natural revelation.

Man of one piece, he unified his life, works, and his intentions in a lively and dialectical system which at times was implicit. Theory and practice are two forms of the same posture, if one considers an exaggeration to say that his theories are generalizations of his experiences. Each thesis has its value from its principle, but the principle flourishes in each thesis. His work could be defined as anthropological theology, and, in this sense, one could speak of a Christian humanism: the human condition is its starting point, even in the demonstration of the existence of God.

The posterity has always venerated this great genius, and many human sciences find their foundation and basic postulates in his thoughts. He is renowned as an evolutive, theological and catholic thinker.

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