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Feb 10, 2024 · Published: February 10, 2024. Written by: Mark Waite. Reviewed by: Jason DeRose. Discover how Augustine incorporated Plato's ideas into his theology and spirituality, and the impact it had on his influential work. Explore the connection between these two influential figures. Share: Augustine.
- Born in Declining Empires: Both were born in provinces of great empires and were writing during the decline of those specific kingdoms. Augustine was born in the city of Thagaste (now Souk Ahras, Algeria) in the Roman Empire’s province of Numidia.
- Influential Mothers-Distant Fathers: Both had devout Christian mothers who introduced their sons to the faith and had an enduring influence on their boys as they became men.
- Renounced the Faith in Their Youth: Both questioned and ultimately rejected their Christian roots as young men and pursued non-Christian philosophies of life.
- Lived with Women Outside of Marriage: Both lived for years with women they were not married to. In his late teens Augustine moved to the city of Carthage and began a sexual relationship with a young woman.
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Mar 7, 2024 · St. Augustine is one of the most influential Christian figures in history. But before he became a bishop and theologian, he was a lost soul searching for meaning in life. In this blog post, we will explore the incredible transformation that led to St. Augustine’s conversion to Christianity.
Jul 7, 2020 · We shall see that similarities and divergences in the readings of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart and Henri Le Saux can be understood in terms of how they negotiate the relation between the One and the many, or between ‘being’ and ‘knowing’.
- Daniel Soars
- djs85@cam.ac.uk
- 2021
- Overview
- Life overview
St. Augustine was the bishop of Hippo (now Annaba, Algeria) from 396 to 430. A renowned theologian and prolific writer, he was also a skilled preacher and rhetorician. He is one of the Latin Fathers of the Church and, in Roman Catholicism, is formally recognized as a doctor of the church.
How did St. Augustine impact the world?
St. Augustine is perhaps the most significant Christian thinker after St. Paul. He adapted Classical thought to Christian teaching and created a powerful theological system of lasting influence. He also shaped the practice of biblical exegesis and helped lay the foundation for much of medieval and modern Christian thought.
What is St. Augustine best known for?
More than five million words of St. Augustine’s writings survive, ranging from sermons to theological treatises. Of these, two have had particularly lasting influence: The City of God and Confessions. The former is a philosophical defense of Christianity that outlines a new way to understand human society, and the latter is largely a spiritual self-examination.
St. Augustine (born November 13, 354, Tagaste, Numidia [now Souk Ahras, Algeria]—died August 28, 430, Hippo Regius [now Annaba, Algeria]; feast day August 28) bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430, one of the Latin Fathers of the Church and perhaps the most significant Christian thinker after St. Paul. Augustine’s adaptation of classical thought to Christian teaching created a theological system of great power and lasting influence. His numerous written works, the most important of which are Confessions (c. 400) and The City of God (c. 413–426), shaped the practice of biblical exegesis and helped lay the foundation for much of medieval and modern Christian thought. In Roman Catholicism he is formally recognized as a doctor of the church.
Augustine was born in Tagaste, a modest Roman community in a river valley 40 miles (64 km) from the Mediterranean coast in Africa, near the point where the veneer of Roman civilization thinned out in the highlands of Numidia. Augustine’s parents were of the respectable class of Roman society, free to live on the work of others, but their means were sometimes straitened. They managed, sometimes on borrowed money, to acquire a first-class education for Augustine, and, although he had at least one brother and one sister, he seems to have been the only child sent off to be educated. He studied first in Tagaste, then in the nearby university town of Madauros, and finally at Carthage, the great city of Roman Africa. After a brief stint teaching in Tagaste, he returned to Carthage to teach rhetoric, the premier science for the Roman gentleman, and he was evidently very good at it.
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While still at Carthage, he wrote a short philosophical book aimed at displaying his own merits and advancing his career; unfortunately, it is lost. At the age of 28, restless and ambitious, Augustine left Africa in 383 to make his career in Rome. He taught there briefly before landing a plum appointment as imperial professor of rhetoric at Milan. The customary residence of the emperor at the time, Milan was the de facto capital of the Western Roman Empire and the place where careers were best made. Augustine tells us that he, and the many family members with him, expected no less than a provincial governorship as the eventual—and lucrative—reward for his merits.
Augustine’s career, however, ran aground in Milan. After only two years there, he resigned his teaching post and, after some soul-searching and apparent idleness, made his way back to his native town of Tagaste. There he passed the time as a cultured squire, looking after his family property, raising the son, Adeodatus, left him by his long-term lover (her name is unknown) taken from the lower classes, and continuing his literary pastimes. The death of that son while still an adolescent left Augustine with no obligation to hand on the family property, and so he disposed of it and found himself, at age 36, literally pressed into service against his will as a junior clergyman in the coastal city of Hippo, north of Tagaste.
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As a young man, Augustine was attracted to the dualistic religion of Manichaeism and then later to neo-Platonism. His dramatic conversion to Christ is recounted in his Confessions. In AD 395, Augustine became the bishop of Hippo Regius in North Africa.
Published 2018. Philosophy. The connection between Augustine and Plato is well-documented yet challenging to explain. It is not fair to either thinker to say Plato + Christianity = Augustine. The relationship between the two is a much more nuanced affair. On the surface, similarities between Christianity and Platonism are very pronounced.
