HI 370: St. Augustine Book II

In Book III of Confessions, his range of “rotten…ulcerous” sins expands from teenage pranks to attending public spectacles and reading tragedies. Augustine suspects that seeking truth might be more important than worldly success. In Book III he also stumbles upon the Manichees faith, which is a heretical version of Christianity. In this section much of this book is dedicated to attacking the Manichee faith. Augustine’s first criticism of the Manichee doctrines he believed concerned their dependence on an elaborate mythology. The sun and the moon were seenas divine beings and they tended to picture divinity in terms of “physical images” or “bodily shapes”. These images plagued Augustines mind almost until his conversion, which kept him from recognizing God as a “spiritual substance” rather than some sort of enormous physical mass. Augustine has 3 main criticisms for the Manichee belief. The first being that it challenged the concerns of nature and the source of evil. Second, it challenged the nature of God as a being and the idea of God as omnipotent and omnipresent. And thirdly, the rejection of the book of Genesis and much of the Old Testament.. Augustine concludes with a story of how

As this man was inspired to learn the truth, he read a book called Hortensius and soon after joined the Manicheans. These people had elements of Christianity and elements of Buddhism but believed that all creations including flesh were evil. They believed all sex; even marriage including the birth of children was evil and sinful. Manicheans felt that the world was evil material full of darkness trying to find the spiritual world of light, as some would say, the power between good and evil. While being associated with the Manicheans, Augustine had the conception that evil was capable of being touched, like a material substance. But as he spoke with others and further looked into what evil means to exist, he abandoned the notion that evil is something tangible. He realized that evil does not exist in the physical world and therefore moved away from the Manichean religion.

Though Augustine remained involved with the Manichees for nine years, he questioned certain of their beliefs from the

Augustine financial support for his education, he did not care how Augustine’s character would advance through his education. St. Augustine’s dad paid more than a richer man would pay for their son’s education because he wanted to provide Augustine with the proper education. (Confessions, II, 5). Unlike the attitude toward his father, St. Augustine showed a great deal of respect to his mother, Monica, since she was a practicing Christian (II,60). In spite of this, Augustine criticized his mother for holding him back from his sexual desire (II,8). But his father arranged his marriage and encouraged him to have children (II,6). Unlike Confucius’s teachings of remaining reverent to your parent, Augustine openly criticized his family’s wrong doings because God was his heart and only truth (II,5).

Augustine turned to the church to find the answers to life’s questions after years of trying to find them with various philosophers. St. Augustine sought the truth and after falling in with groups such as the Manicheans, whom were a group of Pagan philosophers. St. Augustine found his way to the Bible, and after reading Scriptures began his process of conversion to Christianity. St. Augustine soon realized that conversion is a lifelong process that he would have to take the time to study and learn the word of God. In addition to understanding the Scriptures, he must also understand the why he felt that he must seek God for his answers.

Augustine begins with the knowledge of conviction of truth and it’s able to reach the human reason. A conviction stood against the philosopher milieu of the day of skepticism. Augustine had try to attract to skepticism before holding on close to Christianity and after being associated with Manichaeism which it was a major religion found in Iranian, so he knew very well with what he was dealing with and understood well. Augustine knew that truth does exist and he was able to discover the matter of seriousness. “One relating to life itself and, in some way, to the hope of a happy soul.”

In order to understand St. Augustine’s thought process, one must understand his history. St. Augustine was born in a time of turmoil for the Church. Born shortly after the edict

This is because it was seen as a dualistic religion. Manichaeism offered salvation through the knowledge of spiritual truth. Augustine had been apart of this religion for about 10 years before leaving when he deemed it inappropriate to remain with

It is obvious from The Confession that Augustine was a man who struggled endlessly to extricate himself from the bondage of sin, but the more he tried, the more he failed and sinks deeper into its abyss. And with every failure, comes a sense of disappointment and despondency, until he had a strange experience. In AD 386, while sitting in his garden, Augustine heard a voice from some children playing not far away urging “him” to pick the book—the Bible, and read. What he read from Apostle Paul’s letter to the Roman Christian in Chapter 13 transformed, not only his understanding of the hopelessness and despair man encounters in trying to solve the problem of sin on his own, but he saw the provision that God has made to remedy the consequences of sin and the grace he has graciously provided to live a life that is acceptable to God. That moment was the turning point in Augustine’s life and how he developed his sotoriological

In Saint Augustine's deeply personal work, Confessions, he shares the story of his life up to his eventual conversion to the Christian faith. His odyssey through life is, at times, one of bitter inner conflict between his intellect and faith. Augustine's classical education had a profound affect on the way he viewed the world, and eventually had a major affect on the way he approached Christianity. He is definitely an "intellectual" Christian, and viewed many aspects of his faith from this perspective. Augustine's attitude towards classical literature and thought was at times slightly self-contradictory. It is clear, however, that although he was grateful for the education he was given, it was

St. Augustine was a theologian and philosopher born in Africa to St. Monica. Although he is now known as a an incredibly influential Christian writer and thinker, his early years were defined by rebellion and discord that did not, in the least, reflect Christianity or the values that he is now known for supporting. His early years were freckled with mindless disobedience, wretched behavior, and characterized godlessness that makes his conversion to the faith incredibly remarkable and one that is worth defining in Saint Augustine 's Confessions. His incredible turnaround from a faithless man to a devout supporter of Christianity is significant and is freckled with many major milestones that truly demonstrate his spiritual and internal growth into one of the biggest spiritual icons of the fifth century. These major milestones include his realization that his boyhood was defined by pointless rebellious behavior, even though he grew up in a Christian home, his new found appreciation for philosophy as well as God and his incredible mercy during his years as a student at Carthage,

At this point in his life, Augustine is recognized for doing many things for the Church as a priest, author, and defender of faith. As an author he wrote Confessions, his spiritual autobiography, and City of God, his great work describing the Christian philosophy throughout history. In this magnificent work,

Augustine's father was a local Roman official and pagan, until he converted shortly before dying. Monica, Augustine's mother, was a devout Christian and tried to raise her son as one also. Augustine was a natural born leader in school, but at the age of sixteen he was forced to leave because his father could no longer pay the tuition fees. Augustine turned to alcohol, gambling, and prostitutes. A year later Augustine was able to return to school and studied law. When his studies were completed at the age of eighteen he became a teacher.

Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, was one of the greatest philosophers of the roman period. He was raised in a religiously divided home, but through time he found his own truth. He was always an excellent student. He fully mastered the Latin language, however, he never did well with Greek. Saint Augustine was also a man who had a way with words. After his teenage rebellious stage, he found an unorthodox religious group that he decided to become involved with for a while. He traveled the area and ended up staying in Milan for a while. This is where he met Bishop Ambrose and began to listen to his teachings. This caused for Augustine think about his life and ultimately converted him to Christianity. After converting, he wrote books such as: Confessions, The City of God, and De Doctrinia (On Christian Doctrine), along with many others. Saint Augustine was and still is a great Christian influence in the world today.

Unable to give up Christianity altogether, however, he adopted Manichaeism, a Christian heresy claiming to provide a rational Christianity on the basis of a purified text of Scripture. Nine years later, his association with the Manichees ended in disillusionment; and it was in a religiously detached state that Augustine arrived in Milan. There he discovered, through a chance reading of some books of Neoplatonism, a form of philosophy that seemed compatible with Christian belief. At the same time, he found that he was at last able to give up the ambitions for public success that had previously prevented him from embracing the philosophic life. The result was the dramatic conversion that led Augustine to devote his life to the pursuit of truth, which he now identified with Christianity. With a small group of friends, he returned to North Africa and, in Thagaste, established a religious community dedicated to the intellectual quest for God.