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The model theologian We know more about the life of Augustine of Hippo than of any other person in the ancient world. And why? Because it so happened that he wrote his autobiography. Quite unusual for a saint. Augustine was born into a prosperous household on 13th November AD354 at Tagaste in the part of North Africa then called Numidia, now Algeria. It was a thriving Roman province, its culture more thoroughly Latin than in Italy itself, and where Greek was commonly spoken. Tagaste was one of more than 100 cities in North Africa that had a bishop. Augustine's father Patricius was not a Christian; his mother Monica was. The boy was not baptised (though when he was sick he had asked to be). As was not uncommon at that time, he was enrolled as a catechumen, a candidate for eventual baptism. But when he was 17 his father died. His further education, which was paid for by a chap called Romanius, a friend of his father, was aimed at turning him into a lawyer, but he was more fascinated by rhetoric, and later by philosophy, and never took to the law. If he had, we would probably have never heard of him. When he was sixteen Augustine was sent to Carthage, and, once there, threw himself into its exciting intellectual life and more immediately attractive sexual opportunities. When Augustine whispered that half-prayer "Lord make me chaste, but not yet" he was still a teenager. He began a relationship with a woman who bore him a son, Adeodatus, before he was 18. This relationship lasted for fourteen years, and ended when he decided it was time to move on. He moved to Italy and after a while took up a professorship in Milan. While there he met Ambrose the bishop, who impressed him. (Augustine later recalled how he was taken by the way Ambrose read to himself without mouthing the words.) Augustine began reading more philosophy. Then, one day in 386 in a garden in Milan, according to his own account, he seemed to hear a voice like that of a child repeating the words "Take up and read". He interpreted this as a divine exhortation to open the bible and read the first passage he happened to see. The bible opened at chapter 13 of Paul's letter to the Romans, and in verses 13 and 14 he read 'Let us walk honestly..., not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealously. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.' He immediately resolved to embrace Christianity, and with his son Adeodatus, his mother Monica, and some friends of his own age he withdrew to a country villa to work things out. At Easter of the following year he was baptised by Ambrose along with the other candidates including Adeodatus, now 15 years old, in the cathedral at Milan. Monica, who had been praying for her son all the while, died in Ostia before the year was out. But she did have the pleasure of seeing her son baptized. Augustine changed. And on this occasion the change lasted. He returned to Africa and gave away his possessions to the poor. Though it was not his idea, he was persuaded in 391 to become a priest by the enthusiastic urging of the Christians at Hippo. Five years later he was ordained as Bishop of Hippo, a rather busier and more cosmopolitan city than backwater Tagaste. Augustine was Bishop of Hippo till his death 34 years later. And what did he do? Principally he preached: he taught his people, Sunday after Sunday, commenting on the scriptures. He also wrote a great deal - 113 of his books are known today - one of which was Confessions, his autobiography. The preamble to the marriage service in the Book of Common Prayer is closely based on his thoughts. By any standards Augustine was an amazing figure. Some thought him frightening, though there are many suggestions of a compassionate side to his nature. In any event he left an indelible mark on the life and thought of Christianity. He died in Hippo on 28th August (which is now kept as his feast day) in his 77th year. Augustine was fascinated by the working of the mind, especially his own mind. In his autobiographical Confessions, for example, he psychologically dissects a youthful incident when he and his companions steal pears from an orchard. He did not want the pears to eat them - he threw them away after the theft. Why then did he steal them? Was the attraction the illicitness of the act itself? Was he excited by the danger of being found out? And so on. Yet what was always central to Augustine was the mystery of the Trinity. There is a story that while he was taking a walk along the shore one day, he saw a little girl running backward and forward between a hole in the sand and the sea. Each time she reached the sea she filled a shell with water. Every time she reached the hole she poured the water into it. Augustine asked the child what she was doing. "Pouring the sea into my hole", was the reply. And when Augustine kindly explained that this was an impossible task, the child retorted that it was just as impossible for him to comprehend the Trinity. In that, Augustine is not alone. Bill Hutchings |
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page last updated 1 JUNE 2001 |
