Commemoration Day: June 15(28)
Biography
Childhood and Youth. Early Years
Aurelius Augustine was born in 354 AD in the Numidian city of Thagaste (in North Africa).
Augustine's father, a pagan, was a member of the city administration and owned a small estate. Augustine's mother, Monica, a pious woman, unlike her husband, professed faith in Christ (she was later canonized by the Church). Despite the traditionally secondary position of women in society at that time, Monica's influence on her husband and son was ultimately successful (in the end, her husband, Patricius, was baptized, albeit shortly before his death).
Augustine's family, while not destitute, was of modest means. However, limited funds did not prevent his parents from providing him with a good education. Initially, he studied in his hometown, then from 363 to 366 he continued his education in Madaura. The next place of study, which he went to as a fifteen-year-old youth, was Carthage.
Here Augustine became acquainted with many peers. Moreover, not all of them led a chaste life. Having negative examples before his eyes, but lacking a fully formed internal moral compass, Augustine himself became involved in debauchery.
In Carthage, he met a woman with whom he later had a child in 372. His son was named Adeodatus (in Greek, Theodore). Augustine later remembered him with paternal love and tenderness.
Spiritual Searches
A certain turning point in Augustine's worldview and outlook occurred when he was nineteen. Then, with funds sent by his mother, he acquired a manuscript of Cicero's work "Hortensius," in which the author, with his characteristic persuasiveness, revealed the significance of the love of wisdom as the highest good. This work had a strong psychological impact on Augustine, prompting him to seriously contemplate the meaning of life, including his own, and to compare the worldly values familiar to him with eternal ones.
At one point, Augustine developed a sympathy for the false teaching of the Manichaeans, who recognized two opposing principles: good and evil. Reading the Holy Scriptures did not evoke in him the proper reverent feeling. Moreover, his level of trust in Christianity was not high enough (perhaps this was due to his father's pagan views). However, his sympathy for Manichaeism was facilitated by that internal discord which was characteristic of him due to his moral licentiousness and which he felt inwardly: on one hand, a spiritual striving for something bright and sublime, and on the other, base carnal impulses. Was this not a struggle between two principles, good and evil? The period of Augustine's fascination with Manichaeism lasted almost 10 years, approximately from 373 to 382 AD.
After receiving the desired education in Carthage, Augustine returned to his homeland, Thagaste, and found work there as a grammar teacher. However, some time later, he moved back to Carthage. Here, in addition to teaching, he seriously engaged in theoretical research in the natural sciences. Meanwhile, while studying the basics of astronomy, he also studied, for example, astrology. His mother, who sincerely worried about him and had moved to Carthage to be closer to her son, still hoped that one day, with God's help, he would convert, turn away from harmful, sinful habits and false ideas.
Over time, Augustine had more and more questions to which Manichaeism could not give him a clear, affirmative answer. Once, when Bishop Faustus, who was respected and authoritative among the Manichaeans, arrived in Carthage, Augustine approached him and showered him with inconvenient questions. After listening, Faustus admitted that he was unable to satisfy his curiosity. Then Augustine experienced a certain disappointment in Manichaeism, although he appreciated the sincerity of the Manichaean bishop.
In 383, Augustine went to Rome, and some time later moved from there to Milan (Mediolanum), where he received the position of rhetorician. Both as an inquisitive person and as a rhetorician, he was interested in hearing the sermons of the famous Bishop Ambrose (of Milan). And he listened. And this listening was not fruitless.
Conversion to Christ
As Augustine attended Sunday services, as a catechumen, he became more and more captivated by the beauty of Orthodoxy. From the sermons of Bishop Ambrose, he learned that Christian doctrine represented a much richer and more sublime knowledge than he had previously assumed. And although his former depravity made itself known through sinful movements in his soul, by God's Providence, he was, step by step, drawing closer to Christ.
A mysterious incident made a great impression on him. Once, while reflecting on his own sinfulness and being in contrition of spirit, he suddenly heard a mysterious voice, as if of a child, chanting to him: "Take up and read." Looking around and finding no one who could have said it, Augustine interpreted this call as an address from above. He understood that the object of reading must be the Holy Scripture. This call, in turn, reminded him of the calling of Anthony the Great, whose life had once made a strong impression on him. Augustine immediately returned to the place where he had left the Scripture and began to read. His attention focused on a phrase warning against various dangers (revelries, drunkenness, debauchery, licentiousness, envy, strife, and lust in general) and calling to put on Christ (Romans 13:13-14).
In 388 or 389, Augustine finally received Baptism. This event could not but rejoice his mother, a zealous Christian. Soon she fell asleep in the Lord.
Priesthood
After his mother's death, Augustine, having spent some time in Italy, went to his hometown of Thagaste. He had received an inheritance from his father, but he, having firmly determined the direction of his future path, sold everything and donated the proceeds to the needs of the Church.
Soon Augustine moved to Hippo. By that time, he had gained some fame as a defender of Christianity and a theologian. In 391, Bishop Valerius, at the insistence of the local community, ordained him to the priesthood. From that time on, Father Augustine became his faithful assistant in spreading the faith, preached extensively, engaged in the interpretation of Holy Scripture and the fight against heretical errors.
In 395, Father Augustine was elevated to the episcopal rank, and after the repose of Bishop Valerius, he headed the Diocese of Hippo and led it until his death.
A few years before his death, Blessed Augustine chose Heraclius as his successor. On August 28, 430, the heart of the bishop, exhausted by fever, stopped, and he appeared before the Face of the Supreme Judge.
Literary Legacy
Over the years of his pastoral activity, dozens of works of various kinds came from the pen of Blessed Augustine. As a church writer, he is well known as a preacher, a dogmatist, and a polemicist.
Unfortunately, not everything related to this author's work can be accepted without reservation. One of the most contested aspects of his thought is the doctrine he presented in polemics with the Pelagians concerning the role of Divine grace in the matter of salvation. Objecting to the heretics' teaching about the possibility of man's deliverance from the defilement of sin almost by his own strength, the blessed father rightly noted that without the assistance of grace this is fundamentally impossible; however, carried away by the heat of polemics, he minimized the role of man himself to such an extent that it later provided ground and reason for the formation of a new teaching representing an extreme opposite to Pelagianism: the doctrine of God's predestination (according to this teaching, only he whom God predestined for salvation is saved).
Another controversial point in the works of Augustine of Hippo is connected with his view of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Love. In later interpretation, this point of view became the basis for the teaching of the Western Church about the procession of the Holy Spirit not only from the Father but also from the Son (the essence of this teaching is as follows: the Father loves the Son and, therefore, brings forth Love, but the Son also loves the Father and, consequently, also brings forth Love; since Love is the Holy Spirit, it follows that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son).
Meanwhile, Blessed Augustine is rightfully revered as one of the most outstanding church writers of universal stature.
Among the dogmatic treatises that have reached us are such works as On the Trinity, On the City of God, On the Creed, Enchiridion, On Eighty-Three Different Questions in One Book.
Known as polemical works are: On Free Will, On the Nature of the Good, Against the Manichaeans, On Grace and Free Choice, On Rebuke and Grace, On the Predestination of the Saints.
Among the pastoral instructions are: On the Instruction of Catechumens, Sermons and Instructions, A Sermon on the Feast of Peter and Paul, A Sermon on the Appearance of Jesus Christ to the Two Disciples at Emmaus, and others.
A special group of works is defined by their exegetical focus. These are: The Literal Meaning of Genesis, The Harmony of the Gospels, Tractates on the Gospel of John, Explanation of Psalm 125, Christian Doctrine or the Foundations of Hermeneutics and Church Eloquence, etc.
Veneration
Blessed Augustine is mentioned in the acts of the Fifth Ecumenical Council among the holy fathers and teachers of the Church, whose Orthodox teaching is accepted by the Church as a standard.
His memory (June 28) was introduced into Russian Menologions in the 19th century from the Greek "Synaxarist" of Nicodemus the Hagiorite.