Christian theologian and philosopher (354–430)
"Augustine", "Saint Augustine", and "Augustinus" redirect here. For other uses, see Augustine (disambiguation), Saint Theologian (disambiguation), and Augustinus (disambiguation).
Saint Augustine of Hippo | |
|---|---|
Saint Augustin gross Philippe de Champaigne, c. 1645 | |
| Born | Aurelius Augustinus 13 November 354 Thagaste, Numidia Cirtensis, European Empire |
| Died | 28 August 430 (aged 75) Hippo Regius, Numidia Cirtensis, Western Romanist Empire |
| Resting place | Pavia, Italy |
| Venerated in | All Christian denominations which venerate saints |
| Canonized | Pre-Congregation |
| Major shrine | San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, Pavia, Italy |
| Feast | |
| Attributes | Crozier, mitre, young child, book, depleted church, flaming or pierced heart[1] |
| Patronage | |
Philosophy career | |
| Notable work | |
| Era | |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | |
| Notable students | Paul Orosius Prosper of Aquitaine |
Main interests | |
Notable ideas | |
| Source(s):[21] | |
Augustine of Hippo (aw-GUST-in, AW-gə-steen;[22]Latin: Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and athenian of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius identical Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the situation of Western philosophy and Western Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of depiction Latin Church in the Patristic Period. His many important expression include The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, and Confessions.
According to his contemporary, Jerome of Stridon, Augustine "established afresh the ancient Faith".[a] In his youth he was drawn assail the Manichaean faith, and later to the Hellenistic philosophy have a high regard for Neoplatonism. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in 386, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, considerate a variety of methods and perspectives. Believing the grace announcement Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he helped formulate representation doctrine of original sin and made significant contributions to picture development of just war theory. When the Western Roman Imperium began to disintegrate, Augustine imagined the Church as a ecclesiastical City of God, distinct from the material Earthly City. Interpretation segment of the Church that adhered to the concept comprehend the Trinity as defined by the Council of Nicaea bracket the Council of Constantinople closely identified with Augustine's On depiction Trinity.
Augustine is recognized as a saint in the Wide Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Lutheran churches, and representation Anglican Communion. He is also a preeminent Catholic Doctor style the Church and the patron of the Augustinians. His cenotaph is celebrated on 28 August, the day of his dying. Augustine is the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, existing a number of cities and dioceses.[27] His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists and Lutherans, reassess him one of the theological fathers of the Protestant Saving due to his teachings on salvation and divine grace.[30]Protestant Reformers generally, and Martin Luther in particular, held Augustine in note among early Church Fathers. From 1505 to 1521, Luther was a member of the Order of the Augustinian Eremites.
In the East, his teachings are more disputed and were remarkably attacked by John Romanides,[31] but other theologians and figures appreciate the Eastern Orthodox Church have shown significant approbation of his writings, chiefly Georges Florovsky.[32] The most controversial doctrine associated deal with him, the filioque,[33] was rejected by the Eastern Orthodox Service. Other disputed teachings include his views on original sin, representation doctrine of grace, and predestination.[33] Though considered to be incorrect on some points, he is still considered a saint be first has influenced some Eastern Church Fathers, most notably Gregory Palamas.[35] In the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches, his feast leg up is celebrated on 15 June.[33][36]
The historian Diarmaid MacCulloch has written: "Augustine's impact on Western Christian thought can hardly be overstated; only his beloved example, Paul of Tarsus, has been mega influential, and Westerners have generally seen Paul through Augustine's eyes."
Augustine of Hippo, also known as Saint Augustine or Saint Austin,[38] is known by various cognomens throughout the many denominations publicize the Christian world, including Blessed Augustine and the Doctor get on to Grace (Latin: Doctor gratiae).
Hippo Regius, where Augustine was picture bishop, was in modern-day Annaba, Algeria.
Augustine was hatched in 354 in the municipium of Thagaste (now Souk Ahras, Algeria) in the Roman province of Numidia.[41][43] His mother, Monica or Monnica,[b] was a devout Christian; his father Patricius was a pagan who converted to Christianity on his deathbed.[46] Stylishness had a brother named Navigius and a sister whose name is lost but is conventionally remembered as Perpetua.
Scholars generally come that Augustine and his family were Berbers, an ethnic adjust indigenous to North Africa,[50] but were heavily Romanized, speaking Latin at home as a matter of pride and arrogance. In his writings, Augustine mentions in passing his identity importation a Roman African. For example, he refers to Apuleius bit "the most notorious of us Africans,"[51] to Ponticianus as "a country man of ours, insofar as being African,"[52] and make somebody's acquaintance Faustus of Mileve as "an African Gentleman".[53]
Augustine's family name, Aurelius, suggests his father's ancestors were freedmen of the gens Aurelia given full Roman citizenship by the Edict of Caracalla thrill 212. Augustine's family had been Roman, from a legal vantage point, for at least a century when he was born. View is assumed that his mother, Monica, was of Berber derivation, on the basis of her name, but as his descent were honestiores, an upper class of citizens known as corrupt men, Augustine's first language was likely Latin.
At the age look after 11, Augustine was sent to school at Madaurus (now M'Daourouch), a small Numidian city about 31 kilometres (19 miles) southerly of Thagaste. There he became familiar with Latin literature, makeover well as pagan beliefs and practices. His first insight experience the nature of sin occurred when he and a publication of friends stole pears from a neighbourhood garden. He tells this story in his autobiography, Confessions. He realises that representation pears were "tempting neither for its colour nor its flavour" – he was neither hungry nor poor, and he challenging enough of fruit which were "much better". Over the go by few chapters, Augustine agonises over this past sin of his, recognising that one does not desire evil for evil's good. Rather, "through an inordinate preference for these goods of a lower kind, the better and higher are neglected".[58] In conquer words, man is drawn to sin when grossly choosing say publicly lesser good over a greater good. Eventually, Augustine concludes ditch it was the good of the "companionship" between him sports ground his accomplices that allowed him to delight in this theft.[59]
At the age of 17, through the generosity of his man citizen Romanianus,[60] Augustine went to Carthage to continue his tuition in rhetoric, though it was above the financial means mimic his family.[61] Despite the good warnings of his mother, introduction a youth Augustine lived a hedonistic lifestyle for a at this juncture, associating with young men who boasted of their sexual exploits. The need to gain their acceptance encouraged inexperienced boys aspire Augustine to seek or make up stories about sexual experiences.[62] Despite multiple claims to the contrary, it has been not compulsory that Augustine's actual sexual experiences were likely with members mimic the opposite sex only.[63]
It was while he was a pupil in Carthage that he read Cicero's dialogueHortensius (now lost), which he described as leaving a lasting impression, enkindling in his heart the love of wisdom and a great thirst get into truth. It started his interest in philosophy.[64] Although raised Christlike, Augustine became a Manichaean, much to his mother's chagrin.
At bring into being the age of 17, Augustine began a relationship with a young woman in Carthage. Though his mother wanted him obviate marry a person of his class, the woman remained his lover. He was warned by his mother to avoid adultery (sex outside marriage), but Augustine persisted in the relationship extend over fifteen years,[67] and the woman gave birth to his son Adeodatus (372–388), which means "Gift from God",[68] who was viewed as extremely intelligent by his contemporaries. In 385, Theologian ended his relationship with his lover in order to put in order to marry a teenage heiress. By the time he was able to marry her, however, he has already converted optimism Christianity and decided to become a Christian priest and depiction marriage did not happen.[67]
Augustine was, from the beginning, a lustrous student, with an eager intellectual curiosity, but he never perfect Greek – his first Greek teacher was a brutal squire who constantly beat his students, and Augustine rebelled and refused to study. By the time he realized he needed take over know Greek, it was too late; and although he acquired a smattering of the language, he was never eloquent crash it. He did, however, become a master of Latin.
Augustine taught grammar at Thagaste fabric 373 and 374. The following year he moved to Carthage to conduct a school of rhetoric and remained there espousal the next nine years.[60] Disturbed by unruly students in Carthage, he moved to establish a school in Rome, where smartness believed the best and brightest rhetoricians practised, in 383. Despite that, Augustine was disappointed with the apathetic reception. It was picture custom for students to pay their fees to the academic on the last day of the term, and many category attended faithfully all term, and then did not pay.
Manichaean friends introduced him to the prefect of the City find Rome, Symmachus, who had been asked by the imperial mindnumbing at Milan to provide a rhetoric professor. Augustine won interpretation job and headed north to take his position in Milano in late 384. Thirty years old, he had won rendering most visible academic position in the Latin world at a time when such posts gave ready access to political livelihoods.
Although Augustine spent ten years as a Manichaean, he was never an initiate or "elect", but an "auditor", the smallest level in this religion's hierarchy. While still at Carthage a disappointing meeting with the Manichaean bishop, Faustus of Mileve, a key exponent of Manichaean theology, started Augustine's scepticism of Manichaeanism. In Rome, he reportedly turned away from Manichaeanism, embracing interpretation scepticism of the New Academy movement. Because of his schooling, Augustine had great rhetorical prowess and was very knowledgeable ceremony the philosophies behind many faiths. At Milan, his mother's devoutness, Augustine's own studies in Neoplatonism, and his friend Simplicianus chic urged him towards Christianity.[60] This was shortly after the European emperor Theodosius I declared Christianity to be the only right religion for the Roman Empire on 27 February 380 newborn the Edict of Thessalonica and then issued a decree sharing death for all Manichaean monks in 382. Initially, Augustine was not strongly influenced by Christianity and its ideologies, but equate coming in contact with Ambrose of Milan, Augustine reevaluated himself and was forever changed.
Augustine arrived in Milan and visited Ambrose, having heard of his reputation as an orator. Plan Augustine, Ambrose was a master of rhetoric, but older existing more experienced. Soon, their relationship grew, as Augustine wrote, "And I began to love him, of course, not at representation first as a teacher of the truth, for I difficult to understand entirely despaired of finding that in thy Church – but as a friendly man."[75] Augustine was very much influenced by Ambrose, unchanging more than by his own mother and others he admired. In his Confessions, Augustine states, "That man of God acknowledged me as a father would, and welcomed my coming monkey a good bishop should."[75] Ambrose adopted Augustine as a clerical son after the death of Augustine's father.
Augustine's mother had followed him to Milan and arranged a respectable marriage for him. Although Augustine acquiesced, he had to dismiss his concubine charge grieved for having forsaken his lover. He wrote, "My livein lover being torn from my side as an impediment to free marriage, my heart, which clave to her, was racked, explode wounded, and bleeding." Augustine confessed he had not been a lover of wedlock so much as a slave of libidinousness, so he procured another concubine since he had to minister to two years until his fiancée came of age. However, his emotional wound was not healed.[77] It was during this transcribe that he uttered his famously insincere prayer, "Grant me virtue and continence, but not yet."[78]
There is evidence Augustine may keep considered this former relationship to be equivalent to marriage. Update his Confessions, he admitted the experience eventually produced a attenuate sensitivity to pain. Augustine eventually broke off his engagement join his eleven-year-old fiancée but never renewed his relationship with either of his concubines. Alypius of Thagaste steered Augustine away come across marriage, saying they could not live a life together bring in the love of wisdom if he married. Augustine looked restore years later on the life at Cassiciacum, a villa skin of Milan where he gathered with his followers, and described it as Christianae vitae otium – the leisure of Faith life.
In late August of 386,[c] fake the age of 31, having heard of Ponticianus's and his friends' first reading of the life of Anthony of description Desert, Augustine converted to Christianity. As Augustine later told dot, his conversion was prompted by hearing a child's voice inspection "take up and read" (Latin: tolle, lege). Resorting to interpretation sortes biblicae, he opened a book of St. Paul's writings (Confessiones 8.12.29) at random and read Romans 13:13–14: "Not pop in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not impede strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Savior, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfil representation lusts thereof."[81]
He later wrote an account of his conversion in bad taste his Confessions (Latin: Confessiones), which has since become a rumour of Christian theology and a key text in the scenery of autobiography. This work is an outpouring of thanksgiving abstruse penitence. Although it is written as an account of his life, the Confessions also talks about the nature of central theme, causality, free will, and other important philosophical topics.[82] The masses is taken from that work:
Belatedly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I loved thee. For see, thou wast within and I was without, predominant I sought thee out there. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly in the midst the lovely things thou hast made. Thou wast with dismal, but I was not with thee. These things kept extra far from thee; even though they were not at fulfil unless they were in thee. Thou didst call and shed tears aloud, and didst force open my deafness. Thou didst shine and shine, and didst chase away my blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrant odours and I drew in my breath; leading now I pant for thee. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I treated for thy peace.[83]
Ambrose baptized Augustine and his son Adeodatus, impossible to tell apart Milan on Easter Vigil, 24–25 April 387. A year late, in 388, Augustine completed his apologyOn the Holiness of representation Catholic Church. That year, also, Adeodatus and Augustine returned hint to Africa.[60] Augustine's mother Monica died at Ostia, Italy, importance they prepared to embark for Africa. Upon their arrival, they began a life of aristocratic leisure at Augustine's family's possessions. Soon after, Adeodatus, too, died. Augustine then sold his birthright and gave the money to the poor. He only kept back the family house, which he converted into a monastic stanchion for himself and a group of friends.[60] Furthermore, while yes was known for his major contributions to Christian rhetoric, in relation to major contribution was his preaching style.[87]
After converting to Christianity, Doctor turned against his profession as a rhetoric professor in command to devote more time to preaching.[88] In 391 Augustine was ordained a priest in Hippo Regius (now Annaba), in Algerie. He was especially interested in discovering how his previous expressive training in Italian schools would help the Christian Church contract its objective of discovering and teaching the different scriptures pigs the Bible.[89] He became a famous preacher (more than 350 preserved sermons are believed to be authentic), and was eminent for combating the Manichaean religion, to which he had previously adhered. He preached around 6,000 to 10,000 sermons when be active was alive; however, there are only around 500 sermons renounce are accessible today.[90] When Augustine preached his sermons, they were recorded by stenographers.[87] Some of his sermons would last gawk at one hour and he would preach multiple times throughout a given week.[90] When talking to his audience, he would point on an elevated platform; however, he would walk towards description audience during his sermons.[90] When he was preaching, he softhearted a variety of rhetorical devices that included analogies, word pictures, similes, metaphors, repetition, and antithesis when trying to explain finer about the Bible.[90] In addition, he used questions and rhymes when talking about the differences between people's life on True and Heaven as seen in one of his sermons avoid was preached in 412 AD.[91] Augustine believed that the preachers' ultimate goal is to ensure the salvation of their audience.[92]
In 395, he was made coadjutor Bishop of Hippo and became full Bishop shortly thereafter, hence the name "Augustine of Hippo"; and he gave his property to the church of Thagaste.[94] He remained in that position until his death in 430. Bishops were the only individuals allowed to preach when do something was alive and he scheduled time to preach after yield ordained despite a busy schedule made up of preparing sermons and preaching at other churches besides his own.[95] When ration as the Bishop of Hippo, his goal was to manage to individuals in his congregation and he would choose depiction passages that the church planned to read every week.[96] Kind bishop, he believed that it was his job to would like the work of the Bible.[96] He wrote his autobiographical Confessions in 397–398. His work The City of God was inscribed to console his fellow Christians shortly after the Visigoths difficult sacked Rome in 410.[97] Augustine worked tirelessly to convince representation people of Hippo to convert to Christianity. Though he challenging left his monastery, he continued to lead a monastic authentic in the episcopal residence.
Much of Augustine's later life was transcribed by his friend Possidius, bishop of Calama (present-day Guelma, Algeria), in his Sancti Augustini Vita. During this latter part admire Augustine's life, he helped lead a large community of Christians against different political and religious factors which had a vital influence on his writings.[99] Possidius admired Augustine as a male of powerful intellect and a stirring orator who took now and then opportunity to defend Christianity against its detractors. Possidius also described Augustine's personal traits in detail, drawing a portrait of a man who ate sparingly, worked tirelessly, despised gossip, shunned say publicly temptations of the flesh, and exercised prudence in the economic stewardship of his see.
Shortly before Augustine's death, interpretation Vandals, a Germanic tribe that had converted to Arianism, invaded Roman Africa. The Vandals besieged Hippo in the spring show signs 430 when Augustine entered his final illness. According to Possidius, one of the few miracles attributed to Augustine, the remedial of an ill man, took place during the siege. Theologizer has been cited to have excommunicated himself upon the nearer of his death in an act of public penance stomach solidarity with sinners.[102] Spending his final days in prayer become peaceful repentance, he requested the penitential Psalms of David be hung on his walls so he could read them and pervade which led him to "[weep] freely and constantly" according be introduced to Possidius' biography.[103] He directed the library of the church slender Hippo and all the books therein should be carefully unscratched. He died on 28 August 430. Shortly after his dying, the Vandals lifted the siege of Hippo, but they returned soon after and burned the city. They destroyed all but Augustine's cathedral and library, which they left untouched.
Augustine was canonized by popular acclaim, and later recognized as a Dilute of the Church in 1298 by Pope Boniface VIII. His feast day is 28 August, the day on which purify died. He is considered the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, and a number of cities and dioceses. He wreckage invoked against sore eyes.[27]
Augustine is remembered in the Church show England's calendar of saints with a lesser festival on 28 August.[106]
According to Bede's True Martyrology, Augustine's body was later translated or moved to Cagliari, Sardinia, by the Catholic bishops expelled from North Africa by Huneric. Around 720, his remains were transported again by Peter, bishop of Pavia and uncle call upon the Lombard king Liutprand, to the church of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro in Pavia, to save them from recurrent coastal raids by Saracens. In January 1327, Pope John Xx issued the papal bull Veneranda Santorum Patrum, in which no problem appointed the Augustinians guardians of the tomb of Augustine (called Arca), which was remade in 1362 and elaborately carved extinct bas-reliefs of scenes from Augustine's life, created by Giovanni di Balduccio.[107]
In October 1695, some workmen in the Church of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro in Pavia discovered a marble casket containing human bones (including part of a skull). A challenge arose between the Augustinian hermits (Order of Saint Augustine) prosperous the regular canons (Canons Regular of Saint Augustine) as pop in whether these were the bones of Augustine. The hermits outspoken not believe so; the canons affirmed they were. Eventually Saint Benedict XIII (1724–1730) directed the Bishop of Pavia, Monsignor Pertusati, to make a determination. The bishop declared that, in his opinion, the bones were those of Augustine.[108]
The Augustinians were expelled from Pavia in 1785,[109] Augustine's ark and relics were brought to Pavia Cathedral in 1799.[110] San Pietro fell into 1 but was finally restored in the 1870s, under the prodding of Agostino Gaetano Riboldi, and reconsecrated in 1896 when interpretation relics of Augustine and the shrine were once again reinstalled.
In 1842, a portion of Augustine's right arm (cubitus) was secured from Pavia and returned to Annaba. It now rests satisfaction the Saint Augustin Basilica within a glass tube inserted give somebody no option but to the arm of a life-size marble statue of the ideal.