The Life And Contributions Of St. Augustine 5w2o45

The Legacy of St. Augustine. . .

The Legacy of St. Augustine . . . From the Middle Ages to the present, St. Augustine has remained the most prominent and widely studied author in western Christianity. The foundations of the reverence of St. Augustine, is traced back to St. Augustine‟s own lifetime, and are chiefly due to the fact that St. Augustine produced an immense literary corpus of all western Christianity for solely academic purposes. The massive number of letters and numerous treatises which St. Augustine composed on request by enquirers all over the Roman Empire give witness to the high esteem in which his word was, and is held. St. Augustine was an intellectual giant, one whose influence engulfed the Middle Ages, was stratified during the Reformation, and continues to inspire in contemporary discussions. This paper evaluates St. Augustine‟s philosophy of history and attributed legacy through his contributions to the field of history, both general and theological. The appreciation of Augustine‟s person and work has continued for well over a millennium. Venerated as a doctor of the Catholic Church, St. Augustine found himself in a unique position to present a philosophy of metahistory that was dynamic and forward-thinking. The forwardness of Augustinian thought, both spiritual and academic, cemented his legacy. Renowned theologian and religious historian, Hubertus Drobner in, Augustine and His Critics: Essays in Honour of Gerald Bonner, regarded the history of Augustine in the literary tradition when he wrote: When in around 1450, Gutenberg invented the art of printing, he edited first of all the bible. But here too, Augustine yielded the first place only to scripture. The first patristic work ever printed (Mainz 1462) was De vita Christiana, thought at the time to have been written by Augustine, followed by an excerpt of De doctrina Christiana a year later. Only then did Cicero‟s De officiis and De oratore and the works of Lactantius, „the Christian Cicero‟, appear in print. After that, it was again the turn of one of Augustine‟s most famous and influential works, the City of God. 1

In the previous quote, Drobner provided us with an example of how St. Augustine‟s literary works and influence were exalted well into the Middle Ages. The influence St.

2

Augustine has exerted over the western world was best explained by his two most famous books, Confessions and City of God, both of which belong to the world‟s heritage of the greatest works in the history of literature.1 St. Augustine‟s work was known far beyond the circles of philosophes, historians, theologians and other scholars. As St. Augustine himself explained in The Retractions, “Confessions does not refer only to his sins, but is at the same time a book of praise of God‟s great goodness.”2 St. Augustine was a powerful, self-conscious writer who united sharp analytical capacities, extraordinary comprehension, and ingenious thinking with a practical personality formed by deep felt and reflected experiences of his own. It was St. Augustine‟s convictions and intellectual fervor that would propel him to the position of Professor of Rhetoric in Milan.3 It was during this experience teaching Roman student‟s capacities of the dialectic that St. Augustine‟s thought matured and although abhorred by the Roman student‟s inability to pay for his services, this lead to Augustine‟s profound knowledge of the divine and an unsured understanding of timeless principles of the world rooted in the belief of God.4 Upon completing a study of St. Augustine‟s works, religious literature scholar Hubertus Drobner in, Studying Augustine, affirmed the brevity of St. Augustine‟s thought when he proposed: Confessions and City of God are therefore, by no means only accidentally the most studied of all the numerous works of Augustine, comprising some 35 percent of all publications concerning Augustine. His works are meticulously scrubbed for any point of relevance 2

1

Hubertus Drobner, Augustine and His Critics: Essays in Honour of Gerald Bonner (London: Routledge, 2000), 19. The works of Augustine appear in several compendiums like this one, and are considered to be mainstays in the western philosophical canon. 2

Saint Augustine, Confessions (Toronto: Penguin Classics, 1961), 1. In Book 1 Augustine begins with an affirmation of God‟s Power and Wisdom. 3

Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine. (New York: Random House, 1960), 26. 4

Gerald Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo: Life and Controversies (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963), 12. 3

St. Augustine's Confessions is among the most widely read works in medieval philosophy. Often hailed as the “first autobiography”5 it is an edited of St. Augustine‟s life. St. Augustine did not write, nor did he intend Confessions to be an autobiography as some scholars suggest. Confessions was written, first and foremost as a testimony to God, and secondly as a commentary against rampant pagan thought. St. Augustine had a specific rhetorical strategy that presented the Confessions not only as a testimony of faith and as a retort to conflicting Christian ideals, but as an of his life from sinful adolescence up through his conversion. Foremost St. Augustine and Roman historian Peter Brown in, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography ed St. Augustine‟s rhetorical intent when he argued: Augustine is not merely telling the tale of his own life, but also using his life as a concrete example of how an isolated individual soul can extricate itself from this state and Neoplatonically ascend to a unity that overcomes this isolation and attains to rest in God.3

Confessions, would thereby serve humanity as a unifying philosophy of faith and history, allowing the layman to prescribe to a world that was ordered around a linear faith. Much like St. Augustine‟s philosophy of providential history, Confessions possessed a linear concept that was intended to not only represent his life, but the life of any person living in the world. It is the application and adaptability of St. Augustine‟s experiences in the Confessions that solidified it as a mainstay in the western ideal. In book I of Confessions, St. Augustine described his early years, from his childhood to the age of fifteen. He itted that as a teenager he preferred hedonism to studying.6 In book II, Augustine wrote of his early pursuits of sexual pleasure.7 Around the age

5

James Joseph O'Donnell, Augustine: A New Biography (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005), 3. 6 Augustine, The Confessions. (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1955), 8. “with innumerable lies deceiving my tutors, my master, my parents, from love of play, . . . enslaved by greediness, or that I might have to give to the boys, who sold me their play, which all the while, they liked no less than I.” 4

of sixteen, he gave up his studies, chased women, and even became a thief.8 He moved through three years in book III, to the age of nineteen, when he lived in Carthage. He‟s still chased women, but he had also discovered the Manichean cult. Manichaean theology taught a dualistic view of good and evil. The key belief in Manichaeism was that the powerful, though not omnipotent good power (God) was opposed by the semi-eternal evil power (Satan). This addressed a theoretical part of the problem of evil by denying the omnipotence of God and postulated two opposite powers. Humanity, the world and the soul were seen as the byproduct of the battle between God's proxy, Primal Man, and Satan. The human person was viewed as a battleground for these powers, the soul defined the person, but it was under the influence of both light and dark. The contention of dualism played out over the world as well as the human body, neither the Earth nor the flesh were seen as intrinsically evil, but rather possessed portions of both light and dark.9 Therefore, the Manichaean worldview explained the existence of evil with what St. Augustine later viewed as a flawed creation. Over the nine years of book IV, he finished his studies and became an advocate of God‟s grace in the face of the Hellenistic pagans.10 In book V, St. Augustine had become twenty-nine years old. He had given up on the Manicheans and his mistress, and he traveled to Rome, where he found friendship with Bishop Ambrose. In books VI and VII he described his spiritual journey, during which he sought 7

Augustine, The Confessions, 10. “Behold with the companions I walked the streets of Babylon, and wallowed in the mire therof, as if in a bed of spices and precious ointments. . . the invisible enemy trod me down, and seduced me, for that I was easy to be seduced.” 8

Ibid. “Yet I lusted to thieve, and did it, compelled by no hunger,nor poverty, but through a cloyedness of well-doing, and a pamperedness of iniquity.” 9

Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo; a Biography, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 63-65. 10

Augustine, The Confessions, 19. 5

personal happiness. It was in these two books where St. Augustine began to consider the nature of evil.11 St. Augustine understood God, but did not yet understand Jesus Christ as being the messenger. In book VIII, St. Augustine wrote of his conversion to Christianity. By book IX St. Augustine considered abandoning teaching, when tragedy struck, two of his close friends die, followed by the death of his mother, Monica. Monica would later become canonized as a saint in Catholic doctrine, for her actions as a pillar of faith, and her relationship to St. Augustine. In book X, St. Augustine meditated on what would lead him to God and bring happiness to his life. In book XI, St. Augustine studied the Bible in earnest, which allowed him to develop a providential dialectic about the nature of time. Book XII contained a detailed examination of the first chapter of the book of Genesis, through which he outlined his view of matter. St. Augustine‟s philosophy of matter denounced Aristotelian claims and attributed the unknown to being a characteristic of God‟s grace and design. Finally, in book XIII he explained the goodness of God when he created all things. St. Augustine then read the first chapter of Genesis in an allegorical manner, and he stated that God strived to bring happiness to those who are holy.12 The Confessions told of one man‟s life from sin to salvation. That concept of salvation through God‟s grace coupled with St. Augustine‟s notion of evil, the temporal order of the divine, and the adaptability of the work cemented the Confessions provenance. In essence, Augustine wrote an autobiography of man who was searching how to make since of a Christian world surrounded by both Hellenistic and pagan influences.

11

Augustine, The Confessions, 43. Augustine contemplated that, “The nature of sin resides in free-will, the shackles of man, a gift by the grace of thee.” 12

For the reader interested in approaching the Confessions with more historical background at their disposal, Brown (2000) and O'Donnell (2006) are reliable and helpful resources. 6

On August 24, 410, the unimaginable occurred as General Alaric led his Vandal armies into Rome and pillaged it. Before withdrawing from the city, the Vandals spent three days burning Rome. Alaric‟s Vandals starved the people, shook the confidence of Rome‟s citizens and as a result brought the western world to its knees.13 Roman citizens regarded Rome as the “eternal city” and her sack undermined the Roman feelings of invincibility and security.14 Roman Historian and legend Peter Brown in, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, Stated: Rome was the symbol of a whole civilization; it was if an army had been allowed to sack Westminster Abbey or the Louvre.15 Rome symbolized the security of a whole civilized way of life.16 As this security diminished, refugees began pouring into Roman Africa, including the port city of Hippo where Augustine resided.4

As the Romans tried to make sense of their defeat, displaced people felt anger and disbelief throughout the empire. The most vocal of these groups were the pagans, those who adhered to the traditional deities of Rome. Yet, since Constantine‟s edict of Milan in 313,17 Christianity had not only been tolerated but gained stature toward becoming the official religion of the empire. In the century that followed Constantine‟s edict, the pagans witnessed their temples closed, festivals ended, and their religion suppressed.18 As the great Roman historian Peter Brown in, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, pointed out:

13

Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 286.

14

James J. O'Donnell, Augustine. (Boston: Twayne, 1985), 3.

15

Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 287.

16

Ibid.

17

Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, Wherefore, for this our indulgence, in A. H. Armstrong, The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy; (London: Cambridge U.P., 1967), 33. They ought to pray to their God for our safety, for that of the republic, and for their own, that the commonwealth may continue uninjured on every side, and that they may be able to live securely in their homes. 18 . Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 285. 7

As a result, when Rome was sacked, the outcry from the pagans was that the gods, the guardians of Rome, had been angered by the lack of piety and devotion and thus allowed the city to fall. Ultimately, the pagans blamed the empire‟s Christians for the disaster. While the pagans responded with anger, the rest of Rome‟s citizens, including its many Christians, reacted to the events with dismay and despair.5 It was in the aftermath of the Roman fall that St. Augustine sat down to write City of God. Begun around 412, the work took a lengthy fifteen years to complete, and St. Augustine published it in several installments.19 City of God was not a reaction to the fall of Rome but rather, as classical scholar and St. Augustinian author James O‟Donnell put it, “a response to the response” of the fall of Rome. For in the first ten books of the work, Augustine, employed a mastery of Cicero, Virgil and other Roman writers, addressed the angry pagans and set out to show the futility of the Roman gods and their inability to protect Rome. Hence, the purpose of the first ten books was to render the anger and blame of the pagans unjustified. In dispelling the charges of the pagans, St. Augustine formed an essential link between Greek and medieval thought. As ancient rhetorical scholar John O‟Meara, in The Young Augustine; the Growth of St. Augustine's Mind up to His Conversion, contended: Augustine drew his inspiration, as regards his philosophy, from Plato. He mentions Aristotle only three times in his voluminous writings and seems to have known him merely as a logician. He ired the dialectic of Aristotle and used the method in the interpretation of the scriptures.6

Although St. Augustine was preceded by the Greeks and Romans, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Augustine was the conscience of the dying classical civilization and the emerging Christian world. All of the issues that divided the late Roman Empire and all of the problems of tortured men‟s souls found their way into the work of St. Augustine. Even from birth, the offspring of a pagan father and a Christian mother, he seemed destined to partake of both worlds. Like Plato, Augustine began his quest for the universal and eternal good by turning

19

. James Joseph O'Donnell, Augustine, 1-2. 8

inward. His first concern was for man, by which through the Confessions, Augustine would lead Christianity by example. As Augustinian authority Peter brown stated: This was something Augustine did often; by pointing to his own experience he was able to develop his theology. There was a personal, existential commitment to his works, whenever pointing to the wickedness of man, he pointed first to his own base and nefarious life. But unlike Plato, he did not believe that man can achieve his goal through his own power. Plato had identified knowledge with virtue, if a man truly knows what is good, he will do well. For Augustine it is obvious that not only do men often act against their knowledge but that man is not a rational animal.7

According to St. Augustine, if man was to achieve his salvation, he must turn his will to god.20 However, the Augustinian man, unlike his Greek counterpart, had not even the power to turn his own will to the good. St. Augustine contended that, it was by God‟s gift alone that man achieved salvation. The perfection of man was neither attainable nor logical, perfection was nothing more than an aspect of God‟s design. In the Augustinian guise, perfection was to be at one with the scriptures and to achieve salvation in God. Religious historian and theologian, John Rist explained St. Augustine‟s philosophy of perfection in, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized, wherein he commented on St. Augustine‟s views of original sin: In order to reach God, Augustine must through the misery of his own soul. His sins have a symbolic character, for they are the sins of every man. This is the theological side of the work. In describing his selfishness as an infant, Augustine is at the same time expounding the doctrine of original sin.8

The Confessions have preserved their central place in western literature because they provided such an extraordinary insight into Augustine‟s personal philosophy, and his philosophy of sacred history. St. Augustine‟s sacred history, and as a consequence the adaptability of his prose, allowed the Confessions to transcend time and come to represent the life of the ley Christian. St. Augustine‟s sacred history evolved into a Christian historiography which shifted the academic focus of the Middle Ages into the seminaries and monasteries. 20

John M. Rist, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 166. Rist argues that there was only one way for Augustine to imagine salvation. 9

Augustine‟s reflections on history owed much both to the development of Christian historiography during the fourth century, and to the challenge of his own troubled times. Medieval historian and scholar R.A. Markus in Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine, proposed: An interest in the past was not entirely lacking in Christian circles, it was the pagans that introduced Augustine to a universal history, and at the same time, furnished the clues with the aid of which it could be read as bound up with man‟s destiny. . . It was a way of meeting a need for elementary Christian orientation in a predominantly pagan world, rather than catering for a desire to know the past.9

The fourth century welcomed the development of a new form of historiography that of ecclesiastical history.21 Augustine became conscious of a need for a new kind of Christian historical philosophy that sent man on a linear path towards God by accommodating Hellenistic, Roman, and Christian views of the soul and its relationship to the state. The relationship of church and state was always a crucial question in the medieval world. Due to conflicting viewpoints, the system of interaction between faith and jurisprudence in regards to the state became acute in St. Augustine‟s day. After the empire had become Christian, Romans began to associate their destinies.22 Christ being born in the reign of the first Roman emperor allowed for easy attachment to the philosophy of a Christian destiny.23 Thus, when the barbarians sacked Rome, the early Christians were dismayed. The sack of Rome prompted St. Augustine to begin City of God on the basis to dismiss the fear of his contemporaries.24 The

21

R. A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 62. 22

Norman F. Cantor et al., Medieval Thought: Augustine & Thomas Aquinas (Waltham, MA: Blaisdell Pub., 1969), 36. 23 Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine. (New York: Random House, 1960), 25-27. 24

Ibid., 28. 10

work, however, took fifteen years to write and as epistemological historians Norman Cantor and Peter Klein suggested in, Medieval Thought: Augustine & Thomas Aquinas: Before he was finished it was necessary for him to delve deeply in the philosophy of history and to reconsider the whole question of the relationship between the course of secular affairs and Christian faith.10

In the ancient world, prior to the philosophy of St. Augustine the principal view of history was cyclical, the universe as a whole perpetually ed through the same re-occurring stages.25 Against the cyclical theory St. Augustine argued that the incarnation of Christ was a unique event in history. This unique event, allowed a point of origin in the history of man. In the Augustinian view, Christian faith implied that human history was a definite development from the creation of the world to the last judgment.26 Within St. Augustine‟s thought is a linear scheme in which he proposed the life of Christ was a unique event to which all history must relate. St. Augustine‟s providential view of history was a synthesis of thought; it effectively portrayed the most important event in history as moral, theological, and metaphysical. It was through this current of thought that St. Augustine proposed a dualistic city theory in City of God. R.A. Markus detailed the relationship of the two cities when he explained. In Augustine‟s view, each individual is engaged in a struggle within the soul between the spiritual and the common will. Those men, whom the carnal will is primary, love themselves and neglect God. Those men in whom the spiritual will is dominant, love God to the point of contempt for self Thus, humanity may be grouped into two cities. One is the city of God in which the spiritual will prevails, and the other is the earthly city.11 The life of the two cities extended from the beginning of time to the end of the world.27 During this period of human history the two societies were mixed physically but remained

25

John M. Rist, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized, 48.

26

It was the dispelling of continuous history that sets St. Augustine apart from previous historians. 27 The beginning of time for Augustine was Genesis, the end would be past Revelations and into the City of God. 11

separated spiritually and morally. St. Augustine historian Peter Brown, in regards to the dualism of the two cities, suggested: The two cities are not intended to represent any existing societies, for the struggle occurs within the individual soul; nonetheless, the implication is obvious: the affairs of men are meaningless and mundane when compared to the love of God.12 St. Augustine‟s philosophy of history was thereby dependent upon a measure of faith, a measure that would both satisfy an event of origin and a point of end. St. Augustine knew that the claim to the truth of Christian teaching stood or fell with the historicity of the events on which it rests and as Scholar R.A. Markus prescribed: There was, then, a privileged strand of history in which Augustine could not, as a Christian, fail to take interest. This was the biblical narrative of God‟s saving work among his chosen people, the promise and preparation of the Old Testament and the fulfillment in the New.13

It was in the midst of so much turmoil that Augustine began The City of God. It enlightened both a defense of the Christian ideology and acted as a divine guide for the adaptive state. The first ten books of The City of God, which make up the first part of the work, refuted the pagans‟ charges that Christians brought about the fall of Rome.28 The first five books dealt with the pagan belief that people must worship the old gods to achieve material advantages in this world, including the continuation of the Roman Empire and the supremacy of the city of Rome. In book I, St. Augustine attacked the pagans, who claimed that Rome fell because the Christian religion had weakened it, and he stressed that misfortune happens to every society.29 In book II, he demonstrated that the fall of Rome was not a unique event in human history. St. Augustine proposed that the Romans had suffered calamities before, even when the old gods

28

Aurelius Augustinus and Marcus Dods, The City of God (New York: Modern Libr., 1993), 130. Augustine begins his arguments with commentary on Virgil‟s Aeneid, wherein by Augustine showcases the fealty of the Roman gods and the feebleness of Aaeneas. 29 Aurelius Augustinus and Marcus Dods, The City of God), 130. “God maketh his sun to rise on the just and on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust.” 12

were being actively worshipped, and those gods did nothing to prevent those calamities from happening. St. Augustine suggested that the Romans had become weak because of these gods, since they gave themselves up to moral and spiritual corruption.30 In book III, St. Augustine discussed catastrophes that occurred in pagan times to further prove that Christianity did not cause Rome to fall. In book IV, St. Augustine suggested an alternative view. Rome endured for many centuries because it was the will of the true God, and its survival had nothing to do with pagan gods such as Jove, who behaved only in the lowest of manners. In book V, St. Augustine addressed the pagan notion of fortuna, which many people saw as the viable force that had held the Roman Empire together. Rather, said St. Augustine, the Romans of ancient times were virtuous, and God rewarded that virtue, even though they did not worship him.31 When he reached book VI, St. Augustine shifted focus and devoted the next five books to refuting the pagan viewpoint, that worship of the old gods lead to eternal life. St. Augustine used pagan authors to destroy this notion by saying that the gods were never held in a high regard and therefore, all the old ways, old myths, and old laws were useless in ensuring eternal happiness.32 This piecemeal destruction of pagan theology continued through book X. Book XI began the second part of The City of God, where St. Augustine described the doctrine of the two cities, one earthly and one heavenly. In the next three books he detailed how these two cities came about, based on his reading of the Bible. The next four books explained the prehistory of the city of heaven, from Genesis to the age of Solomon, whose story was allegorized as Christ and the

30

Ibid,. 168.

31

Ibid,. 220. “There is no reason why they should complain against the justice of the supreme and true god-they have received their reward.” 32 Ibid., 243. 13

church.33 In book XVIII, St. Augustine undertook a similar process of portraying the prehistory of the city of the world, from Abraham to the Old Testament prophets. St. Augustine focused on how the two cities would end in book XI and in the process he outlined the nature of the supreme good.34 He emphasized the idea that the peace and happiness found in the heavenly city could be experienced while in the earthly city. Book XX dealt with the Last Judgment and the evidence found for it in the Bible. St. Augustine continued with this theme in book XXI and described the eternal punishment of the damned, arguing that it is not a myth. The final book, book XXII, told of the end of the city of God, after which the saved would be given eternal happiness and consequently, could become immortal. St. Augustine created a theology of the self in The Confessions, and in The City of God he initiates a theology of history. He uncovered a wide-ranging explanation of history that began with creation itself, moved through the turmoil and upheaval of man-made states (the City of the World), and continued to the realization of the kingdom of God (the City of God). In effect, The City of God completed the project he began in The Confessions, where he traced the progress of the self towards completion in God. Likewise, human society found completion in the realm of God. Along with a theology of history, St. Augustine endeavored to assemble a Christian philosophy of society. Thus, St. Augustine gave the western world various areas of philosophical inquiry, such as ethics and politics and a unity in the universality of divine revelation. As a result of St. Augustine‟s philosophies, history completed itself in divine law. Catholic historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Gary Wills in regards to St. Augustine‟s transcendent philosophies observed: 33

It is in this doctrine of origin where Augustine finds his basis for the temporal evangelical history. 34

The supreme good are the followers of God‟s love and by that means, Christians 14

The philosophers of the past, such as Plato, had all said that a person does not owe full and absolute loyalty to any earthly society, and Augustine rigorously critiques this concept in the light of Christian doctrine. He states that the Scriptures alone can instruct human beings about the highest good and the highest evil and that without this guidance, human endeavor has no purpose.14

St. Augustine presented the four essential elements of his philosophy in The City of God: the church, the state, the City of Heaven, and the City of the World. The church was divinely established and led humankind to eternal goodness, which is God.35 The state adhered to the virtues of politics and of the mind, and formulated a political community. Both of these societies were visible and attempted to do well. Mirroring these two notions of the state, there were two invisible societies: the City of Heaven, for those predestined for salvation, and the City of the World, for those given eternal damnation. This grand design permitted St. Augustine to elaborate on his theory of justice: Justice issues from the proper and just sharing of those things necessary for life, just as God freely distributes air, water, and light. Humankind must therefore pursue the City of Heaven to maintain a proper sense of order, which in turn leads to true peace.15 In effect, The City of God challenged human society to choose which city it wished to be a part of, and St. Augustine viewed his task as marking out the parameters of each choice. In regards to metahistory, St. Augustine proscribed a mission statement to the thought of the past, which was based on none other than God and his omnipotence. St. Augustine concluded: The purpose of history is to show the unfolding of God‟s plan, which involves fostering the City of Heaven and filling it with worthy citizens. For this purpose, God initiated all of creation itself. In such a grand plan, the fall of Rome is insignificant.16

To St. Augustine, all history displayed the working of God‟s providence; St. Augustine would define this term as sacred history.36 St. Augustine divided history into ages and thereby,

35

Aurelius Augustinus and Marcus Dods, The City of God, 377. R. A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine, 81. Markus describes a term that incomes all of god‟s gifts related to history. 36

15

developed a philosophy of universal history defined by sacred history. The scheme which St. Augustine explained in the ages of history were founded on the notion that the unfolding of human history was foreshadowed in the work of the six days of the creation followed by a seventh day of rest. St Augustine derived the six ages of human history from the Biblical narrative. St. Augustine proposed that life and history were linked to one of these ages with a beginning in Genesis and an ending in Revelations. St. Augustine historian R.A Markus described the ages of history when he explained: In this scheme the „sixth age‟ is that inaugurated by the preaching of the Gospel and the coming of Jesus Christ, the second Adam, corresponding to the crowning of the work of the six days in the making of man. In this sixth age appears the new man, reborn to new life according to spirit. The new life appears in the last, extreme old age of unregenerate humanity. The sixth age ends with the return of the Son of Man in glory, and is followed by the seventh „day‟, the eternal rest of the just.17

Augustine‟s classical Christian periodization37 was brought into relation with another scheme that involved human history imagined through the stages of man‟s progress from infancy through childhood, adolescence, and ending in death. British academic and clergyman Henry Chadwick in, Augustine, described the designs of St. Augustine when he derived: The division of human history according to the stages of human growth, too, was an old commonplace, and one used in pagan circles as well as Christian. It was easy for Christians to take it over, to relate it to the six-fold scheme based on the creation story, and to introduce into it the theme of rejuvenation in the last age.18

For St. Augustine, the meaning and structure of history derived from the sacred history of man that was proscribed in the scriptures and attributed through the realization of God‟s grace. It was in St. Augustine‟s early position in the history of expression of Christian thought that accorded Augustinian his eminence. As well, it was the high-powered quality and range of his

37

Peter R. Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 72. 16

thought that saw him tower over his successors. He became an authority, whose thinking on subjects that he covered could not be ignored. For centuries after his death, authors struggled to come to grips with the quantity and quality of his thought, and to re-present it in a more systematic matter than St. Augustine. The Church needed a period for the digestion of the nutrition that he had provided. St. Augustine expert and historian Peter Brown in regards to St. Augustine‟s legacy claimed: Augustine has come as near to us . . . as the vast gulf that separates a modern man from the culture and religion of the later empire can allow.19 Attempts to dissect the writing of St. Augustine into what was meant by the categories of theology, philosophy, ethics and politics was treating his work in a way that he could neither have anticipated nor have expected. St. Augustine was thinking and writing before there were clear specializations of this nature. Furthermore, Augustine wrote in a multi-disciplinary manner, across the borders of many fields of thought. St. Augustine‟s multi-disciplined approach manifested because his work was most often a response, often at the invitation of another, to a specific intellectual, moral or theological challenge that was being faced. St. Augustine‟s motivation for writing City of God, illustrated this point. He often was not writing as an academic who had the luxury of being able to define and isolate a small portion of thought on which to focus. Rather, St. Augustine was most often addressing a practical situation that cut across the boundaries of theology, philosophy, ethics and politics. St. Augustine‟s philosophy of a divine metahistory was and continues to be his legacy. A legacy that would be researched studied and expounded upon by greats such as Kant, Hume and Aquinas. St. Augustine‟s metahistory established a prominence in western religious thought and was used as the backbone to both the ideals of John Calvin and Martin Luther. St. Augustine‟s divine and practical dialectic is the reason he is heralded and exalted by contemporary scholars and theologians. St. 17

Augustine‟s metahistory is the reason his thought has transcended time and exalted him as a giant amongst contemporary historians. 1

Hubertus Drobner et al., Augustine and His Critics: Essays in Honour of Gerald Bonner (London: Routledge, 2000), 18 2

Ibid., 19.

3

Peter R. Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 3. 4 Ibid,. 36. 5

Ibid,. 4.

6

John Joseph.O'Meara, The Young Augustine; the Growth of St. Augustine's Mind up to His Conversion. (London: Longmans, Green, 1954), 17. 7

Peter R. Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 11. 8

John M. Rist, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 77. 9

R. A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 49. 10

Norman F. Cantor et al., Medieval Thought: Augustine & Thomas Aquinas (Waltham, MA: Blaisdell Pub., 1969), 51. 11

R. A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 131. 12

Peter R. Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 5. 13

R. A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 62. 14

Garry Wills, Saint Augustine (New York: Viking, 1999), 116.

15

Aurelius Augustinus and Marcus Dods, The City of God (New York: Modern Library.,

1993),401.

18

16

Ibid., 288.

17

R. A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 5. 18

Henry Chadwick, Augustine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 12. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo; a Biography, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 218. 19

Bibliography Armstrong, A. H. The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy;. London: Cambridge U.P., 1967. Augustine, E. B. Pusey, Marcus Dods, and J. J. Shaw. The Confessions. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1955. Augustine, Edmund Hill, and John E. Rotelle. The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century. Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1990. Augustine, Gerard Watson, and Augustine. Soliloquies ; And, Immortality of the Soul. Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips, 1990. Augustine, Saint. Confessions. Toronto: Penguin Classics, 1961. Augustine, Saint. On Christian Doctrine. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1958. Augustine, St. Saint Augustine, The Retractions. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1968. Augustinus, and Henry Chadwick. Confessions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Augustinus, Aurelius, and Marcus Dods. The City of God. New York: Modern Libr., 1993. Augustinus, Aurelius, E. B. Pusey, and Fulton Sheen. The Confessions of Saint Augustine. New York, 1949. Bonner, Gerald. St. Augustine of Hippo: Life and Controversies. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963. Brown, Peter R. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Callahan, John Francis. Augustine and the Greek Philosophers. Villanova, PA: Villanova University Press, 1967.

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Cantor, Norman F., Peter L. Klein, Augustine, and Thomas. Medieval Thought: Augustine & Thomas Aquinas. Waltham, MA: Blaisdell Pub., 1969. Chadwick, Henry. Augustine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Clark, Mary T. Augustine. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1994. Doctorow, E. L. City of God. 375 Hudson St., New York, New York 10014: Penguin Putnam, 2001. Drobner, Hubertus, Robert Dodaro, George Lawless, and Gerald Bonner. Augustine and His Critics: Essays in Honour of Gerald Bonner. London: Routledge, 2000. Dutton, Blake D. "The Cambridge Companion to Augustine (review)." Journal of the History of Philosophy 40, no. 1 (Summer 2002): 118-19. Fitzgerald, Allan, and John C. Cavadini. Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1999. Gilson, Etienne. The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine. New York: Random House, 1960. Holt, Laura. "A Survey Of Recent Work On Augustine." The Heythrop Journal 49, no. 2 (Spring 2008): 292-308. Khapoya, Vincent B. The African Experience: An Introduction. New York: Longman, 2010. Kirwan, Christopher. Augustine. London: Routledge, 1989. Markus, R. A. Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. O'Donnell, James J. Augustine. Boston: Twayne, 1985. O'Donnell, James Joseph. Augustine: A New Biography. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005. O'Meara, John Joseph. The Young Augustine; the Growth of St. Augustine's Mind up to His Conversion. London: Longmans, Green, 1954. Rist, John M. Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Wills, Garry. Saint Augustine. New York: Viking, 1999.

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