Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo born 13 November 354 – died 28 August 430.

He was an early North African Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings including The City of God and Confessions influenced the development of Western Christianity and philosophy.

He was the bishop of Hippo Regius in north Africa and is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity in the Patristic Era. But was he of the Church established by Christ or the one established by Constantine?

• “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.”  Augustine of Hippo
• “If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”  Augustine of Hippo
• “God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.” Augustine of Hippo
• “Miracles are not contrary to nature but only contrary to what we know about nature.”  Augustine of Hippo

The following seem more inline with Constantine's Church:

• "Punishment is justice for the unjust." Saint Augustine
• "If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don't accept, because you will lose one friend; on the other hand, if two strangers come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend. Saint Augustine
• "The greatest evil is physical pain". Saint Augustine

According to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith"

Other disputed teachings include his views on original sin, the doctrine of grace, and predestination. His "Paul of Tarsus", has cause many Westerners to see Paul through his eyes. Augustine was legally Roman but his mother was Berber. He sought to join an order of the Manichaean religion which was briefly the main rival to Christianity in the competition to replace classical paganism.

His sexual exploits and mistress of 15 years were set aside so he could marry a child bride who was an heiress. Augustine's mother had followed him to Milan where he came to see Ambrose of Milan. Although Augustine accepted this mothers marriage arrangements he was deeply pained by the loss of his concubine. He wrote, "My mistress being torn from my side as an impediment to my marriage, my heart, which clave to her, was racked, and wounded, and bleeding."

Augustine confessed that he was not a lover of wedlock so much as a slave of lust, so he procured another concubine since he had to wait two years until his fiancée came of age for she was only 10 years old at the time. It was during those 2 years that he decided to become a celibate priest instead like Ambrose.

Augustine lived a life of aristocratic leisure at his family's property until his mother and eventually his son died. He then gave much of his wealth to the poor and started a monastery for his followers after being ordained in 391 as a priest in Hippo Regius, in Algeria.

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